I believe that the NYT is untouchable for the ordinary person.
For one ordinary person, I agree. But Scott isn’t one, and neither are his high-profile fellows. However, leaving that aside...
Individuals within the NYT are touchable and if you can associate the choice of the individual to participate in gutter journalism with personal ruin then that will act as a disincentive outside of the control of the NYT.
Destroying NYT reporters is hard work for billionaires and presidents. My expectation for success is very low, because it is something that large newspapers are accustomed to dealing with and specific protections are provided by the law to prevent it.
Indeed I go as far as to say the press considers retaliation as a mark of success; based on Scott’s version of his interaction with the reporter I am confident this specific reporter also holds that view. All stories are improved by retaliation against the reporter; this will generate many more eyeballs than one blurb on one corner of the internet would. In summary, it is a very hard task and anything less than total success actually serves the reporter in particular and the NYT in general. Further, if you are unable or unlikely to do it to the next reporter, it doesn’t have any real deterrent value.
Consider: in order to ruin him, you’d have to convince the NYT to fire him. If you can do that, why not convince them to leave out one unimportant detail from an unimportant article instead?
For one ordinary person, I agree. But Scott isn’t one, and neither are his high-profile fellows. However, leaving that aside...
Destroying NYT reporters is hard work for billionaires and presidents. My expectation for success is very low, because it is something that large newspapers are accustomed to dealing with and specific protections are provided by the law to prevent it.
Indeed I go as far as to say the press considers retaliation as a mark of success; based on Scott’s version of his interaction with the reporter I am confident this specific reporter also holds that view. All stories are improved by retaliation against the reporter; this will generate many more eyeballs than one blurb on one corner of the internet would. In summary, it is a very hard task and anything less than total success actually serves the reporter in particular and the NYT in general. Further, if you are unable or unlikely to do it to the next reporter, it doesn’t have any real deterrent value.
Consider: in order to ruin him, you’d have to convince the NYT to fire him. If you can do that, why not convince them to leave out one unimportant detail from an unimportant article instead?