Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Who decides what is interesting and what is not?

Editors. Someone like Bennet has to try to find people who write op-eds well, and to get a mix of them that's interesting to readers.

And readers. I pay to read the NYT, although more to get other sections than the op-ed.

We agree Cotton is not interesting, but much of what you’d argue is interesting or well written I would think garbage, and vice versa. Who gets to play ultimate decider here?

Readers.

I’m not unsympathetic to putting an exalted expert’s finger on the scale. I just don’t see many of them out there. Most of the progressive thinkers I read strike me as at best middle minded. Most of the conservatives strike me as deluded or apologists. Both traffic in voluntary and involuntary sophistry as Pablo Escobar did cocaine.

There are no Vidal v. Buckley match ups out there. Nor are there any truly centrist voices who’ll demand compromise and balance because in the media, compromise doesn’t sell.

I think the problem you are backing into is, what does the mainstream press do with a conservative movement that is not interested in or open to debate? But you're ideologically committed to both-sidesism, so you can't admit that's the problem that cost Bennet his job.

Neither Heer nor you nor I have any expertise to suggest what should be filtered from Oped pages.

You've said a lot of head-scratching things, but this is up there. What sort of expertise do you think is required to read a newspaper?