I don't really agree about the New York Times. Especially in recent times their reporting has seemed rather less than impartial. Maybe one of the most extreme examples was the Duke Lacrosse case [1]. Their reporting from day one was extremely biased. You can find their articles by searching for "site:nytimes.com duke lacrosse". I recommend ordering them in reverse chronological order. The story was quickly tucked under the covers after the story fell to pieces when it certainly deserved substantial reflective reporting on why the media, and NYTimes in particular, were so quick to jump to judgement. The final results show how completely sordid and unfair the case and reporting was. The thing I find most disturbing about this story is that I it seems inconceivable that the NYTimes and other media agencies were unable to dig up the evidence indicating that this case was flimy, at best. But if they were able to dig up this evidence, why did they constantly frame their stories with a presumption of guilt that certainly facilitated a sort of mob mentality towards the case. For instance at one time they chose to write a piece implicitly condemning the players for continuing to practice as if nothing had happened. [2] Well that's probably because nothing had!

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So where to start? Let's start with the person who made the allegations. She is likely a literal psychopath. She ended up getting charged with attempted murder for trying to kill one boyfriend after the case was over. She somehow managed to get that reduced to 'contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile' and a handful of other minor charges and served 3 weekends in jail. 3 years later she went all the way and stabbed to death a different boyfriend. She's now in prison serving a 14 year sentence for murder.

What about the district attorney? He was literally "race baiting." He was running for election in an extremely close contest where the black vote was critical (the person who made the fake allegations was black, the victims were white). He apparently felt that going hard after these kids would help him get that vote. He won the democratic primary and then the general election by 833 votes. Fortunately it didn't really matter. It was revealed that not only did he lie in order to try to get the kids convicted, he also illegally withheld evidence that would have completely exonerated them. He was dismissed and disbarred after being found guilty on some 27 different ethics and other charges. That he's not in prison is a travesty.

It doesn't even end there. Apparently the lead investigator in the case, Mark Gottlieb, had it out for Duke players. He had a long history of disproportionate force, allegations of perjury, disproportionate response (e.g. arrest when the typical response was ticketing), and so on specifically against Duke players. And there's no doubt he was up to games during this investigation. He ended up killing himself.

The reason I mention all of these things is to emphasize how much of a shit show this case should have been from the get go. Again I just do not believe that the NYTimes would have been unable to dig up evidence to this end. Yet they did not present it this way, or even as remotely questionable. And in fact even tried to demonize the players in other articles - apparently one of the players and some friends had, at one time, gotten into a fight with another group of guys where somebody got punched! What a social deviant! Rolling Stone got much more flack for their case because it was an exclusive, but the complete lack of journalistic integrity by the Times exhibited in this case is something I find in no way less excusable.

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The 'moral' of this is that the New York Times put their own social preferences and biases ahead of the raw truth of the story here. Even if they were genuinely unable to dig up the evidence on the case, they lost any and all notions of objectivity in their reporting. And that's dangerous in today's highly polarized times. And maybe more importantly this and their numerous other failures have in no way negatively affected their "value". People tend to be rather happy to excuse even quite egregious behavior and wrongs when it comes from sources that they want to believe. And that's really what I was getting at in holding institutions you agree with to the same standard of those that you don't. Imagine in some parallel dimension an equivalent of Fox News or whatever was running a story inciting a mob against the players, while the NYTimes ran an article objectively discussing the dubious merits of the case and increasing indicators that the case may not hold up to scrutiny. And then it turns out that the players were innocent. How would you view the reporting of our parallel dimension Fox News? Yet, of course it somehow seems so different when it comes from a source that we want to trust.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

[2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/sports/duke-players-pract...