Stephen Dubner

It's like the New York Times where I used to work and which I still love as an institution.

I think it's still one of the greatest papers that ever will be.

I think a lot of the Times coverage in the last 15 or so years has been much more geared toward telling people how they should think about a particular news story as opposed to what the story is.

I completely agree.

You have what the story is pieced, but then it'll be surrounded and followed for days and weeks sometimes by opinion pieces.

I don't really need opinion pieces.

But the problem is that it's very, very, very marketable.

I'm glad The New York Times is thriving.

A previous, you know, I guess, CEO or publisher, Mark Thompson,

came in and as far as I can tell, he saw that news is important, but if we can sell recipes and games and we can pay for the news, then that's a reorientation.

And that really worked.

Did that make the news slightly less robust, serious?

I think it probably did, or it's just the nature of how journalism has changed over time.

But

Even the New York Times and our social media and our friends that we run into, we all are pushing each other into these ridiculously tiny little silos.

And I think it's up to every individual to just say, like, you know, the would-be next generation crack user, like, not for me.

I would rather go surfing, go read a book, go play golf, go hang out with friends and do something.

And live a life that is of rather than be an observer and think this is what that is about.

Right.

For a lot of people, including myself, one thing that's hard to not do or that comes naturally, at least to me and many other people, but not all people, that I've tried to just diminish a lot is the impulse to judge.