So it is generally considered not nice to take satisfaction in someone elses’ misery, but when it comes to certain Proggie Established Media outlets, I will cheerfully make an exception. As if it isn’t enough that Washington Post news offices appear to be afflicted with a plague of cockroaches, now it appears that the NY Times – self-revealed last week as a purveyor of vicious propaganda on a level unequaled since the glory days of Der Stürmer – has a bed-bug problem. Pity the poor working-class exterminators who must venture into the offices; as a commenter noted here at Powerline – how on earth will they tell the difference between the vermin and the regular staff, as well as the Dem Party politicians that the Establishment Media fawns upon with such tiresome regularity?

I will take note of those thoughtful and wide-ranging bloggers with an interest in and a knowledge of history are piling on to the NYT’s Project 1619 hatchet-job on American history; it is always reassuring when bloggers that I have followed for a long time because they are interesting and insightful commenters and in most cases, know much more about certain subjects than I do – come to pretty much come to the same conclusion. Even Victor Davis Hansen launched a blast at the Establishment Media generally this week for their trashing of every newsgathering and reporting convention, although he did not mention the odious 1619 Project specifically.
I cannot pretend to know exactly how this will all impact the NYT, who once fancied themselves the national newspaper of record, but if the shriveling and shrinking of other formerly robust media outlets is anything do go on … the Grey Lady is in for some rough waters, even without the bedbugs. While I might hope for outraged mobs bearing pitchforks and torches gathering at 620 8th Avenue in front of the NYT’s skyscraper, or prominent members of their staff being heckled and humiliated by strangers in restaurants (hey, turn-about is fair play, is it not?), I’ll settle for the same fate which has befallen my own local newspaper. The Express News, once a substantial, full-size metropolitan newspaper (and several inches thick on Sundays) has withered into a shadow of its’ onetime self to about the size of a tabloid; what once were separate sections have been merged together, and the want-ads – which once was a whole separate section – is now a couple of pages. Going out in the very early morning, walking the dogs, I see that only a bare handful of my neighbors have the Express News delivered, where once I could count on seeing the morning paper sitting in every driveway for blocks.

It was the collapse of the advertising revenue stream from want-ads, obits and the various advertising pages and supplements which initially precipitated the decline in the print media. This was something often discussed more than a decade ago, even as certain news aggregator blogs like Instapundit became popular. That began the deflation of local print newspapers, a deflation with an even steeper downward trend, now that the Establishment Media have tied themselves to a single unified progressive narrative. Now when I see a splashy regarding President Trump or any of his allies, appointees or family members – my initial assumption is that it’s wrong; not just mistaken, but malignantly, dangerously wrong. Discuss, as you can bear it.