NYT Letter to Editor

September, 2018
A letter to the NYT editor, because I'm tired of seeing their star columnists all write the same column about the same topic (Trump) with the same point of view.

The NYT Opinion desk assembles a fantastic variety of pieces addressing diverse, global issues. However, the pieces featured on the Times homepage are painfully skewed toward tabloid-esque and self-evident critiques of President Trump and the latest political scandals of his lackeys. While these serve as great click-bait (Nicholas Kristof has often noted the power of the “Trump” keyword to attract readers), a prestigious paper like The Times should do more to present its readers with diverse, impactful, and—most importantly—actionable topics. This is especially true given your mission statement to “direct[] attention to what matters.”

It is unnecessary for the same newspaper to feature multiple high-profile columns with equivalent points of view. The majority of your readership likely do not look past the homepage to find the rest of your opinion content, and you have a responsibility to meet them where they are. Trump’s regularly featured tweets are a red herring: they inflict much less damage than the bureaucratic implementations of his populist urges (rarely elucidated). Media like “This American Life” have done a fantastic job of showing the human impact of those policies at the local level.

The Times’ Editorial Board advances a consistently progressive, globalist agenda in their columns. You should take steps to make the impact of your opinion editorial policy aligns better with your stated values.