new-york-times

Elaborate Hoax Credits New York Times' Bill Keller With Pro-WikiLeaks Op-Ed

Louis Peitzman · 07/29/12 10:14AM

The Bill Keller who wrote the op-ed "WikiLeaks, a Post Postscript" makes his position clear: regardless of your feelings about Julian Assange, WikiLeaks must be protected under the First Amendment — so, too, the New York Times reporters who published stories based on WikiLeaks information.

David Brooks Is Not Coherent

Hamilton Nolan · 07/27/12 09:08AM

Glasses-adjusting New York Times-version-of-a-Republican David Brooks is a highly talented political columnist-craftsman, in the sense that he is able to lay a thin veneer of pop psychology-varnish over even the most cracked glass coffee table of intellectualism* (*David Brooks-style mishmash alert). Today, Brooks puts forth his most breathtaking ideological prescription yet: our leaders should always be doing opposite things at all times.

Everything That Happens at Williamsburg Pool Freighted With Heavy Sociocultural Significance

Hamilton Nolan · 07/05/12 08:47AM

Generally speaking, no mischief perpetrated by teenagers is "news." Teenagers not perpetrating mischief is news. This is because—no matter what race, creed, nationality, or socioeconomic stratum they come from—teenagers are punks. Do not, however, tell this to the New York Times. They have a very incisive sociological story to write.

Rich People Force Their Dogs to Live in Beautiful, Ramshackle Mansions

Caity Weaver · 06/28/12 06:22PM

The always-infuriating New York Times Style section featured a story Thursday about insanely expensive dog houses. It was an article tailor-made made to generate the piquant brand of blind rage specific to every story featured by the always-infuriating New York Times Style section.

Dead New York Times Reporter Anthony Shadid Allegedly Told His Wife: "The Times Killed Me" [UPDATE]

John Cook · 06/25/12 12:54PM

Ed Shadid, the cousin of dead New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid, caused a stir over the weekend when he claimed in a speech that Anthony pre-emptively blamed the Times for his death in Syria, telling his wife: "If anything happens to me, I want the world to know that the New York Times killed me." In an interview with Gawker, the surviving Shadid confirms the account and says the Times knew a trip to Syria was too dangerous, but sent him anyway.

Thomas Friedman Writes His Only Column Again

Hamilton Nolan · 06/25/12 09:55AM

Fabulously wealthy CEO whisperer and newspaper columnist Thomas Friedman is little more than a human-shaped random word generator programmed with the "Computers and Internet" section of a fourth-grade vocabulary textbook and fitted with a mustache. He writes one single column, sometimes using different proper nouns or cycling through slightly new platitudes, in order to allow a new headline to be written. The Only Thomas Friedman Column That Exists—which ran right on schedule yesterday—opens like this:

The New York Times Profiled the Brant Brothers Because the New York Times Hates You

Drew Magary · 06/21/12 01:55PM

We at Gawker have warned you previously that the New York Times Style section exists solely to introduce you to society's biggest shitheads, and yesterday's profile of the Brant Brothers is no exception. At this point, it feels as if the Times is going out of its way to troll us all. No one at that paper could possibly think these two teenagers—who have yet to contribute anything meaningful to society—are inherently interesting. A much more reasonable explanation is that someone at the Times Style section sits down every week and is like, "Oh hey, how can we piss off everyone this week? I KNOW! Let's profile a pair of privileged dipshits!" Look at this fucking article:

Selling Out Is No Longer a Thing, It Is the Thing

Rich Juzwiak · 06/04/12 02:56PM

Some melodrama went down at New York hip-hop radio station Hot 97's annual Summer Jam this weekend. Before the show, morning-show host Peter Rosenberg publicly dissed headliner Nicki Minaj for her increasing pop appeal: "I see the real hip-hop heads sprinkled in here. I see them. I know there are some chicks here waiting to sing ‘Starships' later - I'm not talking to y'all right now." "Starships" refers to Nicki's current screaming pop-house hit.

White House Didn't Ask New York Times Not to Publish Classified Information

John Cook · 06/01/12 03:47PM

When the New York Times published a detailed story by chief Washington correspondent David Sanger today confirming the U.S. as the co-author of the Stuxnet virus and outlining Barack Obama's role in directing a highly classified digital monkeywrenching program against Iranian nuclear facilities, many observers noted that the story couldn't have been written without White House support. Which is odd, considering how much energy the White House has been putting into prosecuting leaks it doesn't like.

In Calling New York Times 'Lying Scum,' Roger Ailes Tells Absolute 100% Total Bald-Faced Lie

John Cook · 05/29/12 10:00AM

Fat dick Roger Ailes, who runs Fox News channel when he's not busy spying on his employees, threatening old men, or trying to destroy people who take photographs of his bathrooms, made some waves last week when he called the New York Times "lying scum" for writing about him. What made fewer waves was the fact that the thing that had him so exercised about the Times never happened, and his accusation was itself a lie.

Verlyn Klinkenborg's 'The Rural Life,' Unplugged

Hamilton Nolan · 05/21/12 08:45AM

Oh tra la, fiddle dee dee, dance 'round all of the Maypoles, for Verlyn Klinkenborg hath taken pen in hand to scratch out yet another dispatch from the mild climes of rural America, which is mightily preferable to the indignities of the city, where all of Verlyn Klinkenborg's readers live. This week's fascinating topic: lawns. We got our hands on the rough draft, before the cityfied editors ruined Verlyn's vision.

Wall Street Journal Fights Back Against Claims Rupert Murdoch and Jon Huntsman Fed It a Bullshit Rumor

John Cook · 05/17/12 01:06PM

A Chinese writer is claiming that Rupert Murdoch was behind one of the Wall Street Journal's more embarrassing recent corrections—the paper wrongly claimed that the son of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, who preached Maoist austerity, once showed up for a date at former Amb. Jon Huntsman's residence in a cherry-red Ferrari—and that the Journal "badgered" and "threatened" a source that refused to back it up on the story. The Journal's China editor tells Gawker that the claims are "utter nonsense."