《纽约时报》在美国自由派政治话语中拥有巨大的影响力，几乎可以称得上是“霸权性”的存在。这个说法可能有些激进，我也难以轻易证明其准确性，但我认为事实确实如此。该报的尼科尔·汉娜-琼斯（Nikole Hannah-Jones）撰写的关于自己为孩子寻找一所种族多元化且学术水平较高的学校的文章，引发了长达数周的关于美国K-12教育体系的讨论，最终迫使市长佐赫兰·马姆达尼（Zohran Mamdani）发表意见。
The New York Times has a massive, almost hegemonic influence on the political discourse among liberals in America. That’s a bold statement, and not one I can easily prove. But I think that’s the reality. The Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones’s piece on her struggles to find a racially diverse and academically strong school for her child single-handedly created a weeks-long debate about the state of K-12 education that eventually Mayor Zohran Mamdani was forced to weigh in on.
以埃兹拉·克莱因（Ezra Klein）为代表的评论员，他们的播客和专栏经常被民主党活动人士及当选官员引用。《纽约时报》与锡耶纳大学（Siena University）联合开展的民意调查结果，被视为判断关键选举中谁会获胜以及不同社会群体政治倾向变化的权威依据。玛吉·哈伯曼（Maggie Haberman）则被视为美国研究特朗普总统思维方式的权威专家；该报的客座评论文章也广泛被引用和讨论。
Ezra Klein’s podcasts and columns are often quoted by Democratic activists and elected officials. Pundits treat the polls that the Times conducts with Siena University as the definitive account of who’s ahead in key races and how various demographic groups are shifting politically. Maggie Haberman is considered the nation’s chief authority on President Trump’s thinking. The guest op-eds in the Times are widely quoted and debated.
尽管绝大多数民主党人并不认同《纽约时报》的观点，但他们仍然受到该报的影响。原因在于：民主党人关注的其他新闻媒体——无论是偏左翼的MS NOW，还是较为中立的ABC、CNN等媒体——在报道内容和方式上都会参考《纽约时报》的指导。不过，《纽约时报》对共和党人的影响力相对较弱，因为共和党人普遍对该报持不信任态度，也不信任其他主流媒体。
And while I know that the overwhelming majority of Democrats don’t to the Times, they are still influenced by the paper’s perspectives. Why? Because other news outlets that Democrats consume, both left-leaning places like MS NOW and more centrist ones such as ABC and CNN, take their cues from the Times on what to cover and how. (The Times isn’t so important among Republicans, who tend to distrust both the paper itself and other mainstream media.)
虽然《纽约时报》的这种影响力并非新鲜事物，但美国的政治格局已经发生了根本性变化。正因如此，美国左派对该报的依赖反而变得更加成问题。一个真正致力于对抗专制主义、寡头统治、气候变化以及我们面临的其他重大挑战的自由主义运动，必然难以完全忽视美国最具影响力的媒体的观点。事实上，《纽约时报》往往隐含或明确地宣扬中立、维护现状的政治立场；而为了拯救国家，自由派必须摒弃这种立场。
The power of the Times isn’t new. But American politics has changed in fundamental ways. And that makes the American left’s attachment to the Gray Lady more problematic. A liberalism that forcefully confronts authoritarianism, oligarchy, climate change, and the numerous other enormous challenges that we face will almost certainly be one that is less attuned to the views of America’s most influential paper. The Times implicitly and at times explicitly advances a centrist, status quo politics, and that’s exactly what liberals must abandon to save the country.
《纽约时报》几十年来一直是美国最具影响力的新闻媒体。然而，当我21世纪初开始从事新闻工作时，这种影响力还面临着诸多挑战。那时，人们常认为：如果一篇新闻登上了《华盛顿邮报》或《纽约时报》的首页，那么它就一定非常重要。但实际上，《华盛顿邮报》的影响力早已开始衰退——早在杰夫·贝索斯接管该报并调整其评论版内容之前，该报就已经开始裁员。
The Times has been the most influential news outlet in America for decades. But when I started out in journalism in the early 2000s, that power was more contested. Back then, I remember people would say a story was really important if it were “on the front page of the Post or the Times.”But The Washington Post’s influence had waned even before owner Jeff Bezos shifted the op-ed pages rightward and the paper laid off dozens of journalists the last couple of years.
我在《华盛顿邮报》工作了2021年至2025年期间，我们发布的文章几乎从未获得过与《纽约时报》文章同等的公众关注，也没有引起其他媒体的广泛转载或讨论。
I worked at the Post from 2021 to 2025, and our pieces got nowhere near the same attention from the public or follow-up from other outlets as those in the Times.
我并不清楚《纽约时报》究竟是如何成为美国全国性新闻媒体的。我的推测是：当今的美国政治经济格局导致每个行业都只会出现一个“绝对的赢家”（比如谷歌在搜索引擎领域、苹果在智能手机领域，以及《纽约时报》在新闻媒体领域）。
I am not sure exactly how or why the Times became the national news outlet. My theory is that the American political economy of today creates one megawinner in every industry. That’s Google in web search, Apple in smartphones, and the Times in national media.
问题并不在于有多少人阅读《纽约时报》；真正的问题在于：在2026年，许多自由派活动家与精英阶层的观点其实都受到了《纽约时报》的影响。该报一直坚信那种“非党派化、非意识形态化”的新闻报道方式——这种风格在过去八十年左右的时间里一直主导着美国的新闻界。而在过去，许多新闻媒体都更公开地表达自己的意识形态与政策立场。
But the problem isn’t that lots of people read the Times. The problem is that lots of liberal activists and elites are having their perspectives shaped by the Times in 2026. The Times believes deeply in the nonpartisan, nonideological form of journalism that has dominated in the United States for the last eight decades or so. In prior eras, news outlets were more open about their ideology and policy preferences.
尽管20世纪的电视网络和《华盛顿邮报》《纽约时报》等报纸也开始采用这种更为中立的新闻报道方式，但那些由黑人拥有的报纸却采取了不同的立场，它们更关注种族隔离与白人至上主义等问题。
Even as television networks and newspapers such as the Post and the Times embraced this more neutral approach in the twentieth century, Black-owned newspapers in particular took a different tack, leaning into their concerns about segregation and white supremacy.
《时报》领导层将他们的做法描述为一种“独立”的新闻运作。他们没有明说，但我怀疑，这些领导层非常清楚，该报的读者主要是民主党人以及其他偏中间偏左的读者。因此，该报是在表明自己独立于民主党。不过，《时报》的新闻报道用其他词汇和说法来描述或许更恰当：无党派、两党合作、温和派、中立，以及所谓的“无处视角”，最糟时则是制造虚假平衡。
Times leaders describe their approach as being an “independent” news operation. They don’t explicitly state this, but I suspect those leaders are quite aware the paper’s audience is largely Democrats and otherwise left-of-center readers. So the paper is signaling that it’s independent from the Democratic Party. But the coverage of the Times is best described by other words and phrases: nonpartisan, bipartisan, centrist, neutral, a “view from nowhere,” and, at its worst, false equivalence.
然而，无论我们如何描述这种愿景，在实践中，《时报》的新闻报道（即评论版以外的内容）始终回避将特朗普时代的共和党描述为反民主、仇视伊斯兰、种族主义和寡头政治势力。该报似乎有意将保守派和自由派描绘成同样有问题，或至少暗示左翼也存在严重的过度行为。尤其是在高等教育和跨性别权利方面，该报的报道倾向于强调左翼已经走得过远，而没有突出右翼在这些议题上的威权行径，例如禁止提供性别肯定性医疗照护，以及禁止研究批判种族理论等理念。
However we describe this vision, in practice the Times’ news coverage (meaning outside of the opinion section) avoids consistently describing the Trump-era Republican Party as antidemocratic, Islamophobic, racist, and plutocratic. The paper seems interested in portraying conservatives and liberals as equally problematic, or at least implying that there are major excesses on the left as well as the right. The paper’s coverage of higher education and transgender rights in particular leans into the idea that the left has gone too far, as opposed to centering the right’s authoritarian conduct on those issues (e.g., bans on gender-affirming medical care and the study of ideas like critical race theory).
最终呈现的是一幅事实准确的美国政治图景，却错失了这个重大叙事：共和党是一个与民主为战的极右翼实体；民主党则是一个自由主义民主国家中的正常政党。
The overall product is a factually accurate portrayal of American politics that misses the big story: The Republican Party is a far-right entity at war with democracy; the Democrats are a normal party in a liberal democracy.
该报的评论版虽然总体偏左，但同样经常粉饰美国的政治冲突。对于克里斯托弗·鲁福——这位推动学校和大学全面禁止讲授种族议题的保守派活动人士——正确的处理方式应当是连续发表专栏文章和社论，严厉抨击他的威权主义，而不是通过长篇采访将他当作普通政治人物对待。克莱恩那篇臭名昭著的专栏《查理·柯克的从政方式是对的》集中体现了这种做法。
The paper’s opinion section, while overall left-leaning, similarly often whitewashes the political conflict in the United States. The correct treatment for Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist behind all the bans on teaching about racial issues in schools and universities, should be constant columns and editorials blasting him as an authoritarian, not extended interviews that treat him as a normal political actor. Klein’s infamous column titled “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way” encapsulated this approach.
《纽约时报》完全有权利以这种方式报道2026年的美国局势。中立、非意识形态化的媒体，以及那些在描述当今共和党时避免使用尖锐言辞的报道方式，本身并没有什么问题。真正的问题在于：这种报道方式与《纽约时报》对民主党和自由派人士的巨大影响力相结合，导致了严重的后果。民主党在对抗“MAGA”运动（即支持特朗普的政策）的过程中犯下了许多错误，这些错误付出了沉重的代价——他们错误地认为特朗普在2016年获胜主要是由于民众的经济焦虑；他们误以为乔·拜登的和解态度能够让政治回归正常；他们拒绝敦促拜登停止全力支持以色列在加沙的军事行动；去年，他们也没有积极反对特朗普破坏联邦机构以及推行激进移民政策的举动。
The Times has the right to cover America in 2026 this way. And there is nothing inherently wrong with centrist, nonideological media, or coverage that doesn’t use blunt language to describe today’s Republican Party. The problem is the paper’s coverage approach combined with its huge influence on Democrats and liberals. The mistakes that Democrats have made in fighting the MAGA right have been numerous and deeply costly: believing that Trump won in 2016 largely because of economy anxiety, trusting that Joe Biden’s conciliatory approach would bring politics back to normal, refusing to push Biden to stop fully supporting Israel’s war in Gaza, spending much of last year not fighting hard against Trump’s destruction of federal agencies and radical immigration policies.
在我看来，《纽约时报》在很大程度上促使民主党做出了这些错误的决策。该报的报道方式暗示共和党是理性的，而民主党的一些基层选民则是不理性的。这种观点让民主党人脱离了现实：必须击败“MAGA”运动，而不是与他们进行谈判。
In my view, the Times helped lead Democrats to all of those fateful decisions. The paper’s coverage hints that the Republican Party is reasonable and parts of the Democratic Party base are unreasonable. That approach pushes Democrats away from the reality: The MAGA right must be defeated, not negotiated with.
如果说《纽约时报》的报道方式最严重的问题在于它不适合自由派用来对抗激进化了的共和党，那么另一个虽不那么严重但同样重要的问题则是该报对进步派的怀疑态度。随着进步派影响力的增强，民主党内部的裂痕比过去几十年任何时候都要严重。在我看来，《纽约时报》明显站在了那些无效的、中左翼立场的政党一边。
If the biggest problem is that the Times’ approach is ill suited for liberals fighting against a radicalized GOP, a smaller but important problem is the Times’ approach to skepticism toward progressives. As progressives gain more influence, the intraparty fissures among Democrats are more important than at any time in decades. And the Times, in my view, is very much on the side of an ineffective center-left.
该报编辑委员会坚决认同中左翼的这样一种观点：在大选中，温和派候选人往往能取得更好的成绩，尽管亚当·博尼卡、杰克·格伦巴赫等学者的研究对这一结论提出了质疑。该报在曼达尼竞选期间表现出的怀疑态度十分明显。编辑委员会此前曾宣布，不再在地方选举中背书任何候选人，但后来仍刊登专栏，敦促纽约州民主党人不要在排序选择制选举中将这位社会主义新秀列入前五名。
The paper’s editorial board has strongly embraced the center-left argument that moderate candidates reliably do better in general elections, despite research from scholars Adam Bonica and Jake Grumbach and others that question that conclusion. The paper’s skepticism toward Mamdani during his campaign was obvious. The editorial board, which had previously announced it would no longer endorse candidates in local races, published a column urging New York Democrats not to rank the socialist upstart among their top five candidates in the ranked-choice election.
该报新闻版利用黑客入侵哥伦比亚大学计算机系统后取得的文件，撰写了一篇报道，暗示曼达尼在申请表中勾选“黑人或非裔美国人”是在欺骗他人。曼达尼出生于乌干达，并未获哥伦比亚大学录取。
The paper’s news section used documents obtained from a hack of the computer systems at Columbia University to write a story that implied Mamdani was being deceitful because he checked “Black or African-American” on his application to the school. Mamdani was born in Uganda and was not admitted to Columbia.
据记者亚当·约翰逊报道，该报对2023年10月7日之后冲突的报道严重偏向以色列视角。例如，在描述以色列人的死亡时，该报使用“屠杀”和“大屠杀”这类词语的频率，远高于描述巴勒斯坦人的死亡时。
The Times coverage of the post–October 7, 2023, conflict was heavily skewed toward Israel’s perspective, according to reporting from journalist Adam Johnson. For example, the paper used terms like “slaughter” and “massacre” far more to refer to Israeli deaths than those of Palestinians.
同样，报纸，尤其是其评论版，拥有自己的观点无可厚非。问题在于，民主党的活动人士和政界人士正在以该报为行动依据。在特朗普时代的许多议题上，民主党左翼都展现出了先见之明，判断也是正确的：它看到了亿万富豪、移民与海关执法局和地方警察部门带来的危险；看出了拜登政治路线的弱点；意识到了他的加沙政策所造成的选举困境；认识到了党内如此多领导人年届七旬、八旬的问题；对曼达尼本人的判断也是正确的。
Again, there is nothing wrong with a newspaper, particularly its opinion section, having points of view. The problem is that Democratic activists and politicians are taking their cues from the paper. The Democratic left has been prescient and correct on so many issues in the Trump era: the dangers caused by billionaires, the Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency, and local police departments; the weaknesses of Biden’s political approach; the electoral challenges caused by his Gaza policy; the problem with so many of the party’s leaders being in their seventies and eighties; Mamdani himself.
我认为，如果《纽约时报》没有经常把左翼描绘成脱离现实、不切实际，民主党本会更愿意倾听进步派的声音。
I think the Democratic Party would have listened to progressives more had the Times not regularly cast the left as unrealistic and impractical.
要让美国拨乱反正，我们需要的是堪比“重建”和“新政”规模的变革。我担心，如果民主党人以及更广泛的反特朗普左翼正在依据《纽约时报》的说法，判断什么是必要的、在政治上又是可行的，那么这种情况就不会发生。如果亚历山德里娅·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯和皮特·布蒂吉格在2028年最初的几次初选中胜出，该报会描绘民主党人必须在一位肯定能赢得大选的候选人（布蒂吉格）和一位肯定会落选的候选人（奥卡西奥-科尔特斯）之间作出选择，还是会承认博尼卡和格伦巴赫的研究，以及预测选举结果所固有的不确定性？我担心《纽约时报》会采取前一种做法。
For America to right itself, we need changes on the scale of Reconstruction and the New Deal. And I worry that’s not going to happen if Democrats and the broader anti-Trump left are taking their cues about what’s necessary and politically possible from the Times. If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pete Buttigieg win a few of the early primaries in 2028, will the paper portray Democrats as facing a choice between a candidate who will clearly win the general election (Buttigieg) versus one who will clearly lose (Ocasio-Cortez) or acknowledge Bonica and Grumbach’s research and the inherent uncertainty of projecting election results? I worry the Times will take the former approach.
诚然，《纽约时报》对美国国内外事件的报道可靠而且出色，也经常率先披露新闻。该报的新闻和评论版块有时构成抵御特朗普的重要堡垒。我既是该报的读者，也偶尔为其撰稿，以上评价正是基于这些经历。（我是一组政治分析师中的一员，我们每月都为该报评论版撰写关于中期选举的短文。）我主张自由派扩大自己的新闻信息来源。
To be sure, the Times provides reliable and impressive coverage of events in the United States and abroad. It often breaks news. The paper’s news and opinion sections have at times been a critical bulwark against Trump. I say this as both a reader of the paper and occasionally a contributor to it. (I am part of a group of political analysts writing short pieces each month about the midterms for the paper’s opinion section.) What I am calling for is for liberals to expand their news diet.
在美国需要沿着曼达尼和奥卡西奥-科尔特斯所呼吁的方向发生根本性转向之际，如果《纽约时报》暗中或有时公开鼓吹渐进主义、中间派以及能够容纳“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）理念的议程，那么 largely 依赖这份报纸塑造世界观的自由派就是误入歧途。
If the Times is implicitly and at times explicitly pushing an incrementalist, centrist, MAGA-tolerant agenda at a time when America needs a fundamental shift in the direction that Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez are urging, liberals largely relying on that paper to shape their worldview are misguided.
所以，如果你在收听克莱因的播客，千万别错过约翰逊的《引文需求》。汉娜-琼斯在种族和种族主义议题上的撰文才华横溢，迈克尔·哈里奥特同样如此。《新共和》的突发新闻团队接触不到特朗普及其助手，这往往意味着他们对这位总统的报道比哈伯曼以及那些与特朗普团队对话的人更加直言不讳、坦诚且极具远见。如果你想寻找另一个包罗万象的新闻来源，《卫报》涉猎广泛，且似乎并不怎么担心对共和党人过于苛刻。
So if you’re listening to Klein’s podcast, make sure to listen to Johnson’s Citations Needed too. Hannah-Jones writes brilliantly on race and racism, and so does Michael Harriott. The New Republic’s breaking news team doesn’t have much access to Trump and his aides. And that often means its coverage of the president is more blunt and frank and prescient than that of Haberman and people who talk to Trump’s team. If you want another catchall news source, The Guardian covers everything without seeming to worry much about being too mean to Republicans.
2026年参与政治的正确方式是阅读《纽约时报》，但要记住，许多拯救我们民主所必需的核心新闻，其实早已在别处适合版面并得以印刷。
The correct way to practice politics in 2026 is to read The New York Times but remember that much of the essential news to save our democracy has been fit to print elsewhere.