Yes it is. It is one of the best US papers and is read internationally. It doesn't have an agenda, but is a little conservative. In other words, the traditional values of journalism are still held there - like breaking stories and original research and writing. I think importance of web-publishing there, and its success, is fascinating.
I know someone on staff at the Wsj, and know their political views. I have seen their reporting and it is generally balanced. Yes, the papers always have an editorial line they are following, but it's not necessarily biased to push a view, but more so to match their buyers. Running a newspaper is not a public service for the Wsj.
The big surprise for most people is that people at institutions like Wsj and ny times try and be as professional as possible. They aren't acting like click bait interns at gawker.
I'm not saying you shouldn't view mainstream media with suspicion anymore, but coverage is definitely more balanced than it used to be (not everywhere, but in some of the traditionally trustworthy publications like the New York Times). Conversely, social media networks are increasingly divisive and radical, so if that's your alternative I don't recommend it.
If I have to make a recommendation, the Wall Street Journal has been consistently high-quality in my experience.
I agree. I'd go further and say that the NY Times is the world's best English-language newspaper, with the possible exception of the Financial Times. I think much of the criticism comes from two issues:
1) Newspaper journalism is very hard; look at how much new research (i.e., almost everything they publish outside the editorial page) they publish every day; they're going to get a few things wrong and make a few errors in judgment. However, name a paper that does this job better.
2) The ideological right-wing, trendy in some places (e.g., News Corp publications such as Fox News and the Wall St Journal), in their effort to discredit any source of information for their followers but themselves, have tried to politicize the NY Times. After all, the NY Times prints facts, and those are always a threat to any ideology.
That said, some errors, such as during the leaup to the Iraq War, are inexcusable (but what papers did better?[1]). They're the best, but they could improve a lot.
[1] I think the one answer might be McClatchy's (a leading owner of local papers) DC bureau. Highly recommended for their courage on unpopular questions and for their integrity. A very underappreciated resource: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/
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The Economist and NY Times do two different jobs. The Economist provides analysis; the NY Times generates and presents new knowledge (i.e., journalism), essentially for you to do your own analysis.
For example, the NY Times researches and breaks the story on NSA wiretapping; the Economist provides context and analysis of it (think about it: Have you ever seen the Economist break a story?). The NY Times interviews the head of the NSA, telecommunications companies, privacy adocates, etc. and provides their responses to you. The Economist summarizes and analyszes the responses (think about it: how often do you see quotes in the Economist?).
I'm not criticizing one or the other; both have their place. My perspective: The Economist approach is more efficient (someone does the analysis for you) but is more prone to bias (e.g., they apply their free market ideology everywhere). The Times approach is essential (someone has to create the new knowledge) and less prone to bias, but you need to read a lot more to understand the same story.
The New Yorker has always had high quality investigative journalism (albeit with varying levels of left leaning bias depending on the writer) in my opinion, and seems to be quite doing quite well.
I have a digital subscription to WaPo and I've found it interesting reading even as a European. But it's still clearly a local newspaper to a certain extent: some of the political reporting is ultra-specific to the point where it's barely understandable if you're not immersed in the Washington scene.
NYT is more generic, but also has a higher volume of articles about everything under the sun. For learning about the American situation, I've found WaPo a good compromise.
I'd also recommend WSJ for a generally balanced business-centric outlook on America (their editorial and op-ed pages are basically "more tax cuts!" regardless of what is going on, but the reporting is good).
The Washington Post and the NY Times are both very fine papers: they take the traditional 20th Century American view of journalism (attempting to be objective and authoritative, and taking accuracy seriously) which is a bit alien to the European print tradition, but that's not a bad thing if you want different perspectives. The Wall Street Journal is also a fine paper if you like your news more economically and financially-focused. The Post is probably better for the inside-baseball of US Politics, the Times probably better overall, and for global coverage. But that's just my opinion - try all three and see which works for you.
The opinion sections are of highly variable quality, as people here keep pointing out. And these have always escaped the objectivity ethic. I'd just avoid reading them.
Are you American? US news is actually pretty good; the NYTimes is full of bad articles but it's still a world-class newspaper.
Meanwhile, UK and Australian media are awful, full of Murdoch sockpuppet papers that constantly lie about everything in order to get you to hate immigrants and vote Tory/Liberal. WSJ is a Murdoch paper but they have to sell to bankers, who at least professionally need to know the truth, which is why only the opinion section is nuts. UK papers are like the New York Post if it had less than no ethics.
NYT is just generally excellent when it comes to online news media, the one other paper I can think of that comes close is The Guardian but NYT's visualisations are a class of their own.
It may be amongst them, but do not discount other organizations with a similar pedigree merely because they're not American. Financial Times, The Economist, and so on.
At any rate, this article is an opinion piece along with plenty of other NYTimes articles posted to Hacker News. When judging an opinion piece the the pedigree and reputability of the newspaper matters much less.
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