We've always gotten the Post. It irritates me because it's the hometown paper that hates NYC. And i know New Yorkers who rely upon it as their news source. And THAT really drives me crazy. Still, we will always get it. Great objective assessment.
When I was head of the school board at Rodeph Sholom, the nursery school decided that it wouldn't celebrate Mothers Day in school because some kids, including kids with two dads, didn't have a mother. The Post got ahold of that and its front page headline was SCHOOL CANCELS MOTHERS DAY. The rabbi at the time wanted to respond forcefully to The Post but I convinced him not to because it would have just prolonged the story and you never fight The Post.
I actually think that The New York Post loves the city so much that it's willing to trash the iconic Progressives and Democratic-Socialists who have done so much to make it dysfunctional, even dystopian.
I love our city: I take subways, I take long walks, I get into the car and drive to take longer walks in its various parks and preserves. I visit museums and all the rest.
I sweep my sidewalk and curse the passersby who without fail or remedy toss their trash everywhere, spit, and urinate against everything. Anyone who isn't furious at the state we're in, brought to us by the Progressive, ideology-bound slackers and demagogues who run things, doesn't care about the city at all.
Does it matter? Or do people think that their own clean neighborhoods are good enough for them? I don't want anywhere in our city to be a slum. And a slum is only a slum if enough of its inhabitants make it so. I don't know why more of us aren't indignant.
You know why: It's our home. It was my parents' and grandparents' home. I'm not leaving.
Nor am I saying that every neighborhood is dystopian. Not every neighborhood has illegal immigrants setting out blankets in the streets full of stolen goods for sale, or women their bodies for sale, or strung-out drug addicts sprawled against vacant stores. Not every subway station has lunatics screaming out inner demons. But it's a crap shoot.
For a couple of years, my neighborhood had a band of substance-addicted vagrants who took over a block and used the post office steps, apartment building vestibules, store grates, and homeowners' gardens as their toilets and vomitoriums. We all of us had to scoop up foul excrement every day, sometimes a couple of times a day.
Kind of hard to Clorox beneath a forsythia. It was diarrhea; in summer, swarming with flies. Was it healthy for any of us to be wiping it up?
Ever get a smear of feces in your arm? I have. A guy had squirted his bowels against a shrub I was trying to clean beneath. No matter what I put on it -- soap, iodine, Clorox, Comet -- it stank for a good 24 or more hours.
Somehow we got rid of the guys, but our experience makes me attuned to what our neighbors in other parts of the city are going through. I think that's what it means to be a citizen of a city. You don't just get to live in your own little enclave.
I think the big problem the Daily News has is that you buy the tabloids for edgy, bad-taste attitude (I still remember, ten years on, its DIARRHEA OF A MADMAN wood) but it's hard to do that from the Generic Democrat perspective without looking, erm, "cringe." Jimmy Kimmel liberalism is very much not in vogue right now.
What a great angle for learning something about NYC.
Here’s a larger question that came up for me while reading:
With such a predominance of right wing media in general why does the non-aligned and centre left media seem to bear the brunt of accusations of censorship and bias? Is it because they stake a claim to and we hold them to higher standards? (I guess I’m thinking of the NYTs specifically.)
Your piece seethes with resentment against The NY Post's success and the paper's crusades on issues such as congestion pricing. The NY Post's true status as an underdog was revealed when it published the first stories on Hunter Biden's laptop, but was censored by Twitter and roundly ignored by the rest of the media -- until more than a year after Biden's election. The Post was also blasted by the White House and NYT. among other media, for running "fakes" after a front page story and headline on a wandering, confused Biden. The NYT quickly reversed itself after Biden's debate with Trump, but never retracted its criticism of the Post, which proved spot on.
This gets conveniently forgotten. The Post got it right about Biden's decline, and the laptop story was real. That the Organ of the MIC, the NY Times, censored and spun the story, is expected. That the Times' readers went with it is disappointing, to say the least.
Bravo to Ross for such a trenchant survey of NYC’s media landscape. I’ve lived here 40 years and learned a ton.
To the Post’s selling points let’s add their local monopoly on creative headlines, sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating. The classic example remains: “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar.”
The Post has also been an important guilty pleasure, as captured in their delightful “Three Lies” ad campaign in the 80s, to wit:
I like the Post because they gleefully use words like “maniac” and “perv” and “sicko” in their news columns to describe, well, maniacs, pervs, and sickos. It is so devoid of information that it only takes a few minutes to read. Then my day is brighter.
Hold on a minute. Do you mean that "mentally unstable", "minor attracted person", or "developmentally limited socio economic victim" doesn't do it for you?
An aside, but the absurdity of congestion pricing is that it penalizes commercial trucks to the tune of $15-20. Also, not sure if you ride the trains, but I often see 4 to 5 people avoid fare every day on my Manhattan-Bronx commute. I don’t own a car, but it seems like congestion pricing should penalize B&T day trippers and commuters who should be using mass transit, not truck drivers delivering goods and providing services to Manhattan businesses, residential buildings, schools, hospitals, etc. Also, the MTA should solve the fare evasion issue and, more importantly, audit their management and contractors.
This is not entirely on point but here’s a question for Ross (and anyone else who cares to answer):
Why does New York keep electing LOSERS as mayors?
New York City must have more impressive talent per square yard than any other place on earth. We should be getting one terrific mayor after another, and every candidate should be a star.
Instead, our last competent mayor (his faults notwithstanding) was Mike Bloomberg, whose term ended in 2013.
Then we elected a complete flake (and reputed stoner), Bill DeBlasio, not once but twice! As to Eric Adams, what more need be said?
What gives? I’d be most grateful to anyone who would explain this to me.
For the record, I'm a born and bred New Yorker whose grandparents landed in Brooklyn at the turn of the last century, and here we've all stayed. My grandparents were poor immigrants, neither of my parents had college degrees, and my generation is comprised of lawyers, teachers, and real estate types. Spouse is a lawyer.
And yet.
A longtime subscriber to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, a one-time liberal and Democratic voter (but not a Democrat), I read The New York Post in order to get real news about the city: who got stabbed, beaten, pushed; which Progressive politician has 28 speeding tickets (unpaid); which Democrat slugged his girlfriend -- you know, the stuff I don't get elsewhere. Because that stuff might upset the liberal narrative protected by our major newspapers.
And then there's the Biden crime family whose financial secrets will never be known thanks to the outgoing president's pardon of his brother (who hasn't been convicted of a crime and now can never even be investigated). The New York Post has been yelling about it for years.
It's all right. Of course, you have to wade through mud to get any news out of the Post. Who are these influencers and babes in bras? I don't know who anyone is anymore and don't want to; déclassé doesn't even begin to cover it.
Jeanette Macdonald? Ronald Colman? Bette Davis? Herbert Marshall? I know who they are.
Your history of the tabloids and comments about them were useful. But I can't believe that you didn't turn on the Times. It has become woke to the extreme, completely untrustworthy. I still get it because my wife tends to the left. I like some of their feature writers and occasionally others but I am astounded by their biased news coverage They don't lean to the left. The out and out regularly lie by chopping up statements, intentionally distorting what has been said to fit their politics. Sometimes their audacity astonishes me. Have you read Bari Weiss resignation letter? What was your reaction to the forced resignation of their feature page editor after he allowed conservative Senator Tom Scott to write an op ed? It's okay if you don't have the time to read all three N. Y. newspapers and are unaware of what the Times has become, but then don't publish an article that includes your praise of it.
The Times has "higher standards for accuracy" than the Post? Really??? After Russiagate, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and the gaslighting of readers over Joe's cognitive deterioration, you're praising the Times for its accuracy standards?
We've always gotten the Post. It irritates me because it's the hometown paper that hates NYC. And i know New Yorkers who rely upon it as their news source. And THAT really drives me crazy. Still, we will always get it. Great objective assessment.
When I was head of the school board at Rodeph Sholom, the nursery school decided that it wouldn't celebrate Mothers Day in school because some kids, including kids with two dads, didn't have a mother. The Post got ahold of that and its front page headline was SCHOOL CANCELS MOTHERS DAY. The rabbi at the time wanted to respond forcefully to The Post but I convinced him not to because it would have just prolonged the story and you never fight The Post.
I hear you, but the Post was right. Those aren’t good reasons not to celebrate Mothers Day.
The Post was in the right. Educators should stop embarrassing themselves.
I actually think that The New York Post loves the city so much that it's willing to trash the iconic Progressives and Democratic-Socialists who have done so much to make it dysfunctional, even dystopian.
I love our city: I take subways, I take long walks, I get into the car and drive to take longer walks in its various parks and preserves. I visit museums and all the rest.
I sweep my sidewalk and curse the passersby who without fail or remedy toss their trash everywhere, spit, and urinate against everything. Anyone who isn't furious at the state we're in, brought to us by the Progressive, ideology-bound slackers and demagogues who run things, doesn't care about the city at all.
Perhaps we live in different neighborhoods.
Does it matter? Or do people think that their own clean neighborhoods are good enough for them? I don't want anywhere in our city to be a slum. And a slum is only a slum if enough of its inhabitants make it so. I don't know why more of us aren't indignant.
I don’t see or experience the dystopia you and the NYP describe. If NYC were actually that bad, I wonder why so many people live here.
You know why: It's our home. It was my parents' and grandparents' home. I'm not leaving.
Nor am I saying that every neighborhood is dystopian. Not every neighborhood has illegal immigrants setting out blankets in the streets full of stolen goods for sale, or women their bodies for sale, or strung-out drug addicts sprawled against vacant stores. Not every subway station has lunatics screaming out inner demons. But it's a crap shoot.
For a couple of years, my neighborhood had a band of substance-addicted vagrants who took over a block and used the post office steps, apartment building vestibules, store grates, and homeowners' gardens as their toilets and vomitoriums. We all of us had to scoop up foul excrement every day, sometimes a couple of times a day.
Kind of hard to Clorox beneath a forsythia. It was diarrhea; in summer, swarming with flies. Was it healthy for any of us to be wiping it up?
Ever get a smear of feces in your arm? I have. A guy had squirted his bowels against a shrub I was trying to clean beneath. No matter what I put on it -- soap, iodine, Clorox, Comet -- it stank for a good 24 or more hours.
Somehow we got rid of the guys, but our experience makes me attuned to what our neighbors in other parts of the city are going through. I think that's what it means to be a citizen of a city. You don't just get to live in your own little enclave.
I think the big problem the Daily News has is that you buy the tabloids for edgy, bad-taste attitude (I still remember, ten years on, its DIARRHEA OF A MADMAN wood) but it's hard to do that from the Generic Democrat perspective without looking, erm, "cringe." Jimmy Kimmel liberalism is very much not in vogue right now.
What a great angle for learning something about NYC.
Here’s a larger question that came up for me while reading:
With such a predominance of right wing media in general why does the non-aligned and centre left media seem to bear the brunt of accusations of censorship and bias? Is it because they stake a claim to and we hold them to higher standards? (I guess I’m thinking of the NYTs specifically.)
It’s because they’re biased and come out in favor of censoring opposing viewpoints.
The Post is fun and has a sense of humor. That is part of why everyone reads it, including my wokest NYC friends.
Bingo. It doesn't take it self any more seriously than it had to.
Your piece seethes with resentment against The NY Post's success and the paper's crusades on issues such as congestion pricing. The NY Post's true status as an underdog was revealed when it published the first stories on Hunter Biden's laptop, but was censored by Twitter and roundly ignored by the rest of the media -- until more than a year after Biden's election. The Post was also blasted by the White House and NYT. among other media, for running "fakes" after a front page story and headline on a wandering, confused Biden. The NYT quickly reversed itself after Biden's debate with Trump, but never retracted its criticism of the Post, which proved spot on.
This gets conveniently forgotten. The Post got it right about Biden's decline, and the laptop story was real. That the Organ of the MIC, the NY Times, censored and spun the story, is expected. That the Times' readers went with it is disappointing, to say the least.
A trenchant and accurate analysis.
Bravo to Ross for such a trenchant survey of NYC’s media landscape. I’ve lived here 40 years and learned a ton.
To the Post’s selling points let’s add their local monopoly on creative headlines, sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating. The classic example remains: “Headless Body Found in Topless Bar.”
The Post has also been an important guilty pleasure, as captured in their delightful “Three Lies” ad campaign in the 80s, to wit:
“The three biggest lies about dating:
1) It’s only a cold sore.
2) My roommate won’t hear us.
3) I never read the Post.”
"Ike Beats Tina to Death"
I like the Post because they gleefully use words like “maniac” and “perv” and “sicko” in their news columns to describe, well, maniacs, pervs, and sickos. It is so devoid of information that it only takes a few minutes to read. Then my day is brighter.
Hold on a minute. Do you mean that "mentally unstable", "minor attracted person", or "developmentally limited socio economic victim" doesn't do it for you?
An aside, but the absurdity of congestion pricing is that it penalizes commercial trucks to the tune of $15-20. Also, not sure if you ride the trains, but I often see 4 to 5 people avoid fare every day on my Manhattan-Bronx commute. I don’t own a car, but it seems like congestion pricing should penalize B&T day trippers and commuters who should be using mass transit, not truck drivers delivering goods and providing services to Manhattan businesses, residential buildings, schools, hospitals, etc. Also, the MTA should solve the fare evasion issue and, more importantly, audit their management and contractors.
Penalizing working people and delivery trucks, making them pay more for everything is seen as "doing something" in today's political world.
This is not entirely on point but here’s a question for Ross (and anyone else who cares to answer):
Why does New York keep electing LOSERS as mayors?
New York City must have more impressive talent per square yard than any other place on earth. We should be getting one terrific mayor after another, and every candidate should be a star.
Instead, our last competent mayor (his faults notwithstanding) was Mike Bloomberg, whose term ended in 2013.
Then we elected a complete flake (and reputed stoner), Bill DeBlasio, not once but twice! As to Eric Adams, what more need be said?
What gives? I’d be most grateful to anyone who would explain this to me.
For the record, I'm a born and bred New Yorker whose grandparents landed in Brooklyn at the turn of the last century, and here we've all stayed. My grandparents were poor immigrants, neither of my parents had college degrees, and my generation is comprised of lawyers, teachers, and real estate types. Spouse is a lawyer.
And yet.
A longtime subscriber to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, a one-time liberal and Democratic voter (but not a Democrat), I read The New York Post in order to get real news about the city: who got stabbed, beaten, pushed; which Progressive politician has 28 speeding tickets (unpaid); which Democrat slugged his girlfriend -- you know, the stuff I don't get elsewhere. Because that stuff might upset the liberal narrative protected by our major newspapers.
And then there's the Biden crime family whose financial secrets will never be known thanks to the outgoing president's pardon of his brother (who hasn't been convicted of a crime and now can never even be investigated). The New York Post has been yelling about it for years.
It's all right. Of course, you have to wade through mud to get any news out of the Post. Who are these influencers and babes in bras? I don't know who anyone is anymore and don't want to; déclassé doesn't even begin to cover it.
Jeanette Macdonald? Ronald Colman? Bette Davis? Herbert Marshall? I know who they are.
Your history of the tabloids and comments about them were useful. But I can't believe that you didn't turn on the Times. It has become woke to the extreme, completely untrustworthy. I still get it because my wife tends to the left. I like some of their feature writers and occasionally others but I am astounded by their biased news coverage They don't lean to the left. The out and out regularly lie by chopping up statements, intentionally distorting what has been said to fit their politics. Sometimes their audacity astonishes me. Have you read Bari Weiss resignation letter? What was your reaction to the forced resignation of their feature page editor after he allowed conservative Senator Tom Scott to write an op ed? It's okay if you don't have the time to read all three N. Y. newspapers and are unaware of what the Times has become, but then don't publish an article that includes your praise of it.
The Times has "higher standards for accuracy" than the Post? Really??? After Russiagate, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and the gaslighting of readers over Joe's cognitive deterioration, you're praising the Times for its accuracy standards?
You had me until "despite his policy accomplishments" in referring to deBlasio.
The New York Post has the greatest headlines. Really enjoyed this article.
Good piece, thank you