ABOUT NYTX

The NYTimes eXaminer (NYTX) was launched October 2011. The project idea was proposed to a number of leading media critics, intellectuals, and alternative media activists, organizers and producers earlier that year. Many of these people expressed their support for the project and have since joined NYTX’s Advisory Council. The project’s mission statement and list of Advisory Council members can be found below. NYTX staff information can be found at the bottom of the page.

Project Mission

The ideas behind the project and those that NYTX aspire to realize are:

• Applying standards that are often missing from mainstream media broadly and the New York Times (NYT) specifically. For example, these standards include checks-and-balances such as international law with regard to coverage on foreign policy issues or scientific consensus on climate change reporting. We advocate pursuing those standards that lead to social good and justice.
• Daily direct responses to NYT articles (that appear in both their on-line and print forms)
• Analysis and commentary on NYT coverage of topics and issues
• Critique of NYT editorial choices, standards, journalistic ethics and practices
• Provide Editorials and Op-Ed's covering labor, the environment, human rights, foreign policy, and more, providing alternative analyses to what is offered in NYT editorials
• Provide hard news without corporate bias
• Highlight and analyze NYT content that is highly problematic but often found in its back pages or buried toward the bottom of articles
• Produce supplementary multi-media, i.e. audio and video content with our alternative standards
• Offer additional supplementary material ranging from culture, and reviews, to satire
• Generate analysis of NYT sources (particularly their reliance on and space given to certain sources over others), language used (which may imply a bias), and advertising
• Critique of NYT ownership and management positions and practices
• Reach out to former NYT journalists, staff, and editors to seek their feedback, tips and contributions
• Additionally, in New York City and on-line, hold public seminars, media education workshops, and debates about NYT content for the purpose of  developing critical media literacy.
• NYTX would organize our own media structure collectively and in contrast to NYT's corporate structure, as much as possible under existing circumstances, providing critique of their structure in our project's form and content

Advisory Council

Those who are on our Advisory Council are broad supporters of this effort, and also contribute to NYTX from time to time in various ways – both through providing analysis and content and by being consultants for the NYTX project.

Julian Assange
Julian is Founder and Editor of WikiLeaks, an award-winning web publisher and whistleblowing operation that released the Collateral Murder video, Afghan and Iraq War Logs, Cablegate, and many other documents.

Richard Falk
Richard is UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. He is author of many books including ‘The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy’ and a companion volume ‘Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East,’ both co-authored with Howard Freil who is also on the Advisory Council.

Phyllis Bennis
Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. Phyllis co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement. She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.

Howard Friel
Howard Friel is the author most recently of The Lomborg Deception: Setting the Record Straight about Global Warming (Yale University Press, 2010), and is coauthor with Richard Falk of The Record of the Paper: How The New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy (Verso, 2004) and Israel-Palestine on Record: How The New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (Verso, 2007).

Arun Gupta
Arun Gupta is a co-founder of The Indypendent, of The Occupied Wall Street Journal, and a contributing reporter to Salon, Alternet, Truthout, The Progressive and other publications.

Edward Herman
Edward is a long time media analyst and author. He has written many books including Manufacturing Consent with Noam Chomsky. He also wrote Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the news in an age of propaganda.

Robert McChesney
Robert is host of the weekly radio show Media Matters on WILL-AM. He has written and edited many books on media. His last book, in 2008, was The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas. He has written numerous journal, newspaper, and magazine articles.

Jeff Cohen
Jeff is a media critic and lecturer. He founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986. He is an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College in New York. His latest book is Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.

John Pilger
John is an award winning journalist and film maker. He has written many books including Hidden Agendas, The New Rulers of The World, and Freedom Next Time. His latest film is titled The War You Don't See.

Jessica Azulay
Jessica is co-founder of The NewStandard, a path-breaking independent media organization that specialized in hard-news coverage of U.S. issues and events. After a robust period of publishing for approximately four years, The NewStandard ceased publication on April 27, 2007.

Lydia Sargent
Lydia is a feminist, writer, author, playwright, director and actor. She co-founded South End Press and later Z Magazine which she has produced for more than 20 years. She also produces Z Media Institute, and Z Video.

Michael Albert
Michael is co-founder, with Lydia Sargent, of South End Press, Z Magazine, and ZNet. He is author of numerous books and articles on political economy, alternative economics (participatory economics) and media.

Cynthia Peters
Cynthia is a freelance writer, activist, and editor of The Change Agent, a social justice magazine for adult learners and adult educators. She writes about a wide range of topics including organizing, parenting, media, feminism, racism, and gender politics.

Brian Dominick
Brian is an organizer and journalist with 18 years of experience writing media analysis. Brian was a co-founder, with Jessica Azulay, of The NewStandard that operated from 2004-2007. He also has years of experience with activist-oriented website design, development, and hosting projects.

We are currently seeking the participation of many others. As the project develops we hope to diversify.

NYTX Staff:

Chris Spannos
Chris has 14 years of media experience across radio, film, theater, and digital media platforms. He produced radio at Vancouver Cooperative Radio from 1998 to 2006. He joined Z Communications, primarily working on ZNet, in 2007 where he worked as an editor, system administrator, organizer, and web developer. Chris founded NYT eXaminer (NYTX) in August 2011. He is currently Editor, System Administrator, and web developer of NYTX.

Stephen Roblin  
Stephen Roblin is an activist and independent researcher based in Baltimore, Maryland. He received his masters in public policy at the University of Maryland. He writes on U.S. foreign policy, with a special focus on U.S.-Africa relations. His articles have been published in ZMagazine, ZNet, Truthout, NYTExaminer, and other independent left media sources.

NYTX Contact Page