David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…That is so insane. It's funny. On the one hand, I was like, wow. Today, this would not fly. Then, I'm thinking of myself, today this is what's happening. Not The Times, but yeah. It's crazy. This thread is going to come back so often throughout this history. That said, certainly The Times is quite literally the party mouthpiece of the Republican Party. But Raymond is also a real journalist. He worked at the Tribune, he highly values journalism, and he doesn't want The Times to be sensational. In fact, in the very first edition that comes out that September in 1851, he writes famously, “We, being The Times, shall be conservative in all cases where we think conservatism essential to the public good, and we shall be radical in everything which may seem to us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We do not believe that everything in society is either exactly right or exactly wrong. What is good we desire to preserve and improve and what is evil we want to exterminate or reform.” Of course, he's talking about slavery there. I love this piece so much. Not only is it a beautiful little piece of writing but it is pithy. It captures so much of what their intent is in creating what would become an enduring institution, and how they view it in such a pragmatic way. Listeners, we will link in the sources to where we found this or if you're listening to this more than a week after it comes out, you can check it out in the transcript. I want to have it framed and put on my wall. It’s wonderful.…

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