The Local Columnist as Media Signal

Back when the newsrooms of daily papers were shy about advancing a political agenda, one good clue about the outlook of ranking editors could be read from their primary local columnist. As those winds blew, so sailed the top news brass. At the New York Times, little such divining has been needed for quite a while; nonetheless, it’s notable that progressive Ginia Bellafante occupies this role each weekend. Her latest is a timely example. Dismissing expressed sentiment that sometimes-violent disorder has risen in New York City, she cites the familiar FBI stats on major crimes (declining since the pandemic) and then harkens to the early 1980s, when similar (misplaced?) fears gripped Gotham. Bernard Goetz was hailed in some quarters, at least initially, as a subway “vigilante” for shooting four would-be muggers. Bellafante then writes: “Three months ago, Daniel Penny’s chokehold killing of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless Black man he encountered on the subway, drew comparisons with the actions taken by Goetz, so many years ago. The aftermath, however, was very different. Many were outraged by the ex-Marine’s response.” She does not say that the “encounter” followed the deranged Neely’s loud and perhaps threatening rants inside the subway car (see earlier “disorder”). She implies that New Yorkers overall had shunned Penny; in fact, “many” there and elsewhere have rallied to his cause after the (progressive) Manhattan DA charged him with manslaughter. A legal defense fund is said to have collected $3 million. Regardless of whether Penny, like Goetz, will eventually face punishment for a perceived overreaction, the local columnist for the Times has betrayed a certain view of civic insecurity that is representative of her newsroom but not necessarily a majority in her metropolitan area. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/nyregion/new-york-crime-bernhard-goetz.html