Is it just me, or is there a double standard in how the Times covers inherited wealth in its own family business versus how it covers it in other families — like, say the president's family real estate business?
Here is a Timothy Egan column dated December 15, from the Times op-ed page:
Do entitled rich kids who would otherwise be parking cars without Daddy's help — think Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric — deserve to inherit a vast estate without paying taxes on their unearned largess?
It's a rhetorical question, and you can probably guess Egan's answer from the way he phrased the question.
Here is a Jim Rutenberg column dated December 24, from the Times business section:
family-led newspapers placed their journalistic missions ahead of business imperatives. And they did so under intense governmental pressure, a reminder of the important role that principled family leadership plays in the news business.
That has particular resonance in The New York Times Building as Arthur Gregg Sulzberger prepares to take the publisher's reins from his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., on New Year's Day, extending the Ochs-Sulzberger family's stewardship of the paper to a fifth generation.
The idea of steadfast news leadership should matter beyond The Times's offices, given Mr. Trump's threats against the tax status of Amazon, the company founded by Jeff Bezos, who bought The Post in 2013, and his denigration of the financial performance of The Times, whose subscriptions and stock price experienced double-digit growth in 2017.
Both media properties have the protection of their owners — a family, in the case of The Times; and a billionaire, in the case of The Post — who are bulwarks against the blind market forces that would have them turn into clickbait-only versions of themselves.
There's plenty to quarrel with in the Rutenberg column. Regarding the Amazon tax issue, for example, The Times itself has acknowledged in its news columns that "because so many marketplace sellers do not collect sales tax, there is some legitimacy to the idea that Amazon is not doing everything it can to make sure the government gets its cut." The Rutenberg account studiously omits the role of the Times' own billionaire financial backer, Carlos Slim. As for "clickbait," both the Washington Post and the Times haven't entirely been immune to its temptations, while the "clickbait only" sites have themselves been battered by precisely the market forces that Rutenberg apparently disdains.
What made me chuckle, though was the disparity in the coverage of the younger Trumps — "entitled rich kids who would otherwise be parking cars" — and the younger Sulzberger — "principled family leadership...stewardship."