That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Bill Keller, the man who runs the New York Times, and, by extension, defines the direction of American media, is struggling a bit. His company dropped 27 percent of its first-quarter advertising revenue this year with similar numbers predicted for this quarter, a 2006 New York Magazine profile detailed a newsroom that doesn't believe in him anymore and every move he makes is criticized for being incredibly out of touch.

Of course, there was also that Daily Show segment last month when Jason Jones stopped by the Times' ridiculously expensive new Midtown Manhattan office building for a segment on the newspaper industry. After some polite jabs, there was this cringe-worthy exchange:

Jones: What’s black, white and read all over?
Keller: A newspaper
Jones: No. Your balance sheets!

It was awkward and brilliant. Those who cheer on comedy or hate the Times would be proud to see The Daily Show so effortlessly infiltrate the headquarters of American media. But me, I was actually happy to see Keller playing along at such an awful time. It showed he realized the trouble his industry is facing but knew there was work to be done. And, you know, I figured it would end there. Not so. Here's his response in an upcoming Time interview about how it went.

"Well, that's the last time I try to be a good sport. Even my wife told me that I looked faintly ridiculous, and she was trying to make me feel better. Among the people who would miss us most would be the wise-guy pundits and scriptwriters for satirical TV shows, because they riff on the news we produce."

Is he right? Absolutely, but Keller also took the worst route to say so. In just 58 words, he comes off as angry, distant and arrogant. Basically, he cemented what The Daily Show teased him about.

Perhaps he missed an interview one of his paper's blogs did with Jones the day it aired last month.

"I think the point of the piece is, really, if I could be serious for one moment, that without institutions like yours, the news would not exist. I think everyone has a genuine love of your institution here, because it’s the first paper that almost everybody reads here in the morning. You guys aren’t doing a bad enough job for us to make fun of on a constant basis. Every once in a while you slip up, and then you’re lambs to the slaughter. But you should really be more [terrible]. You’re doing too good of a job."

I realize The Daily Show edits interviews to make them funnier and that they have no journalistic integrity to lose, but this is an incredibly poor showing by Keller after the fact. When a correspondent from a satirical news show walks away looking better than the head of a great media outlet he ridiculed ruthlessly, it's embarrassing.

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The fantastic segment that started all of this.

Keller's disappointing comments to Time about The Daily Show interview

Jason Jones' rather funny interview with the Times

More general NYT advertising losses, plus news on a potential charge for the Web site.