A Lesson on How to Ring as Much as Possible Out Of Nothing
I wonder if The New York Times included its recent poll in its sales plan for March.
To add some citrusy spring to your culinary step, take a fresh lemon and zest it! There are multiple ways to zest a lemon, and really, no special tools or instruments are needed to enjoy the gift of Spring in your meal, drink, or on top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
You get my point (for proper zesting, you can use a microplane — pictured — a vegetable peeler, a paring knife, a box grater, or a zesting channel knife).
This will be the last article in which I react to the poll released by The New York Times/Siena College on Sunday. You may ask why I keep returning to this topic. Because I am slightly overwhelmed at how much juice the editors at The Times keep squeezing out of this lemon of a poll. As if they discovered “gold in them there hills,” our sensibilities have been assaulted by a slew of daily affronts. With a forced all-hail-Trump-and-Biden-is-a-bumbling-idiot approach allegedly harvested in the bogus data, The Times seems to hope that if it keeps offering interpretations, something edible will be found for all.
Today, The Times has sent a flare to the “Biden superfans.” It says we feel alone in our confusion about why the rest of the country is so lost regarding Biden’s successes. Respondents talk about things like how much student debt has been forgiven. Others from the poll talk about how much more money they have started to earn since Biden’s green/pro-climate policies were passed. When I read about how many respondents to the poll were happy with Biden and gave specific policy reasons why, I scratched off some of the lemon zest covering my computer screen and pressed it across my teeth.
Why isn’t The Times leading with this article? When do the editors at this journalistic institution find it in their hearts to treat the world with good news about Biden’s presidency? Would it kill them to report how happy people have their loan debt forgiven? 500,000 Americans have had some or all of their debt forgiven. Millions more are not paying interest on those loans, all thanks to Joe Biden. Biden’s commitment to green energy has created 170,000 jobs and is projected to create 1.5 million. The infrastructure bill is “rewiring” the nation to make electric cars more user-friendly so people can recharge them where and when needed.
All of this is positive. Each small step is in the right direction, and the gross exaggerations that potential Trump supporters give for why they like him in November — “He is so good for the economy” — are not being challenged. Where is The Times article showing us just how abysmal Trump’s economy was for working and middle-class Americans?
When does the media take all of this seriously and realize that November 5th, 2024, is D-Day? If the papers in 1944 were reporting on landing beaches before June 6th, journalists and editors would have been jailed for treason. Call me a whacked-out alarmist, but November 5th is not just any election — it could be our last democratically held one.
It is time for The Times to pull its head out of its ass.
I have been a NYT subscriber for years and very rarely criticise its coverage--however, I think you make an excellent argument. . . which is also very frightening. If a presumably Biden friendly journal is covering the election this way, imagine right-wing coverage.