Letters to "The Editor" have always been must reads for me but the batch in Salon in response to Andrew O'Hehir's review of two new books on 'The Grey Lady' herself ( The worst of Times), positively illuminate. To wit:
In the past, I might have been stuck with the Times. I live in Minneapolis, where the NYT pretty much was the monopoly franchise for national and international news. But thanks to the Internet, I can now read a huge variety of news and international reporting and views. Which made the flawed, narrow Times coverage increasing hard to ignore ... or put up with. The Gray Lady, for all her moments of brief, shining glory, has become a tramp. So why pay hundreds of dollars a year to read this ... junk?
In short, I finally stopped trusting what O'Hehir called "the most prestigious brand name in journalism." And apparently, I'm not the only one.
These letters go beyond name-calling to connect some fairly important dots. Here's but one: