Here's another link that I thought I had lost. Don't you just know that quotes from this blue-zip-code commencement address by Arthur Sulzberger Jr. are going to be showing up in, oh, Focus on the Family fundraising letters for weeks, months and even years ahead? Click here to see what I'm talking about.
The big quote is his Baby Boomer apology to the graduates for the state of their world and even American culture.
You just know that the critics of The New York Times and, sadly, many of the critics of journalism, period, are going to say that it is a kind of blue creed for news coverage (as opposed to content on those holy writ editorial pages):
So, well, sorry. It wasn't supposed to be this way. You weren't supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land.
You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, be it the rights of immigrants to start a new life; the rights of gays to marry; or the rights of women to choose.
Parse that.
Many will say that there is absolutely nothing surprising in this statement. It is the mindset of the institution he leads, they will say. Is that true? Is that newsroom marching lockstep on moral and cultural issues? Is that good for the product and its potential in a national marketplace?
OK, I highlighted the obvious quotation. Readers -- on left and right -- what do you see and how will the usual suspects spin it?