UF must reconsider free subscriptions to The Times

Did you know being a UF student entitles you to a free, yearlong digital subscription to The New York Times?

After learning of this perk before the last presidential election, I took advantage of it over the last few months. I have learned, to my dismay, that the Times is not the type of nonpartisan resource to which UF should be encouraging its students to turn to for neutral news.

The paper, which remains one of the country’s most well-recognized, has recently published numerous controversial and disputed stories that have detracted from its journalistic integrity.  These problematic articles may have resulted from the pressures that the paper feels to compete in an industry ever more reliant on drawing clicks to drive advertising revenue. This hardly justifies the sacrifice of factual reliability. The more likely influence is political partisanship.

My problem with the Times is that it can no longer be counted on as a disinterested reporter of the facts. Instead, it has become little more than the leader of a liberal choir whose every column inch, whether called news or opinion, reflects only ideas hostile to both conservatives and President Donald Trump. Recently, the Times made an effort to employ more bipartisan writers, (although still none who support Trump) to “balance” its approach. The reaction to this attempt to reflect a broader range of ideas on the political spectrum is exactly why I believe the university should make a deal with another publication.

On April 28, former Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens published his first Times column. The article articulated his view that climate science, like all science, should be assessed with vigorous skepticism rather than accepted as undeniable truth. Sounds pretty sensible, right?  Instead of reading and simply disagreeing with his article, the Times subscribers began canceling their subscriptions in protest. Is this the kind of readership we want to be associated with? One that cannot read ideas that conflict with their own? Personally, I would prefer that the university partner with another, more bipartisan paper that allows every side of a debate to be heard, not just the liberal ones.

Pew Research surveyed the readership of every media publication in 2014 and found “The New York Times audience (13% of respondents) skews to the left. About two-thirds of its audience (65%) have political values that are left of center (compared with 38% of all Web respondents).” This data has probably only become more extreme after the 2016 election, and yet UF still only offers a subscription to the Times.

Universities should be open to all ideas, even ones that the majority of people disagree with. Academic institutions used to pride themselves in solving problems through constructive debate, where all sides are heard and the best ideas, regardless of who promotes them, are adopted. By providing a subscription to a paper that only espouses extreme liberal ideals, UF is preventing its students from doing just that.

This lack of conflicting ideas limits constructive debate about any issue and encourages students to hold certain beliefs, instead of providing multiple perspectives and allowing them to decide which is the “best.” I hope the university will realize that this partnership is keeping its Student Body uninformed and will make an effort to find a paper that reflects the views of all Americans, not just the far left.

Jack Story is a UF political science graduate. His column appears on Tuesdays.