Not sure about anyone else but every time I read an article about something I'm actually an expert in or few times about myself or a company I've worked for I see at least a handful of factual errors and/or exaggerations that aren't real.
I think these articles are pretty comical coming from the New York Times, a for profit company, that has been cutting costs amidst really serious editorial failures.
I would believe this much more if it was from an independent news source. It’s like a car salesman telling you great buying a car is.
It’s reasonable that the Times would have such a biased, unfounded article. But not so much that anyone pay attention to or make decisions based on it.
Extra care and attention to detail isn't going to just happen unless there's enough money flowing in solid journalism to allow for it.
It's quite possible that the cost cutting is connected to the editorial failures, and is a consequence of falling revenues. And the NYT as a whole is in a position to see how those things relate.
This isn't to place the NYT above criticism. They could stand to up their game. The profession at large could when it comes to painting accurate pictures of the world and the NYT is better than lots of sources. But it isn't going to happen unless people can get paid to do it.
And unless we pay for it, it's another place we'll be the product. Because the other models for journalism are (a) selling our attention to advertisers or (b) propagandists selling our pre-decided opinion.
So arguments like this article, even cloaked under “opinion” don’t carry weight because it’s just propaganda to sell more papers.
There's nothing about those things that is mutually exclusive. If your entire business depends upon you being a truth teller it is in the interests of both the company and your shareholders for you to tell the truth. Manufacturing a story could be devastating for NYT's reputation, and consequently for their shareholders.
News is only the first rough draft of history [1] [2].
Newspapers are definitely not perfect, and they definitely make errors, but there's no better way to get such a breadth of timely, relatively reliable information to a general reader.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Barth#Legacy
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Graham#%22First_rough_dra...
You're looking in the wrong place. You'll find the first rough draft of history in a newspaper, you'll find the final draft in a book (or at least the most polished draft).
I often find lots of bugs in software that's been rushed out the door to fill and urgent need, it's the name with newspapers.
Many people I know who have been interviewed said something to the effect that "newspapers twist words to fit their angle". They also happened to be in positions of power, so it's hard for me to tell if they simply wanted to control the narrative and the newspaper wasn't going along for the ride it if the newspaper was the one with the hidden agenda. Probably a mix of both.
One huge leap forward was the rise of Wikipedia. Now the journalists recite Wikipedia facts for background, so I see fewer sentences like "Sea turtles, like other mammals,..."