The New York Times is a waste of time

To the left and right alike, Stephen Colbert's performance at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner on April 29, 2006 was a big deal. If you are liberal leaning, you might say he's was hysterical, or you might say he wasn't that funny, but he was courageous. If you are right leaning, you probably think he was not funny, a jerk, or extremely offensive. Mostly likely, all three.

But what is interesting is the mainstream media's initial lack of attention to a speech that directly and in-person called out -- in reality, continuously ridiculed and assaulted -- the President, his administration, and the mainstream press for its failure to investigate his controversial policies and decisions; the blogging worlds massive reaction to the event itself and the non-coverage of the event by the mainstream media; and the subsequent mainstream press's reaction to being called out by the left for not reporting it. Case in point, is The New York Times.

The Times, four days late, mentioned the story, but did so in its "Arts" section. Come on, a major political event in the Arts section? How pathetic is that. It could easily have run headlines the day after the event, such as: "Unfunny Colbert offensively rips the President and press in person," or "Hysterical Colbert mocks Bush and press in person." Either way, whether funny or not, from a liberal or conservative angle, the very newsworthy story -- that he said all this to the President and the entire White House press corps -- would have been reported. Normally, even a one shout heckler gets mentioned during a Bush speech, so how come a 20-minute heckle was ignored by The Times?

The answer is that The New York Times has lost its relevancy and usefulness. Many would argue this happened years ago. Whatever the date, The Times is no longer about delivering all the news. It is a bastion of the old world, while the Internet caters more and more to the growing plugged-in society -- left or right. [Don't blame the problem on being a "newspaper." The Harvard Crimson managed to scoop the world, and The Times, with its recent "Opal" plagiarism story.]

So don't cry or pout when The Times and other newspapers and mainstream TV news programs ignore massive current events. They just don't get it. Like the American auto industry in the 1980s, they are extinct dinosaurs that just don't have the decency to fall into a tar pit and let the new breed of mammals have its day.