Consider that you know a lot about this topic and are disgusted by their handing of it. Consider that this might not be an outlier, and you may not be outraged by their handling of other topics simply because you know a bit less about them.

I don't know if this is true for you, but I've found it to be true for me. It took a good deal of time researching and revisiting to realize.

Yeah, the NYT was never perfect, but in the past few years it has declined sharply. There are still few other organizations as credible, but that's more of an indictment of the news media than it is praise of the New York Times.

Every NYT article should be read extremely critically. The story selection should be viewed critically. People will say this was always true, and sure, in an ideal sense, but I mean that you will very, very often find paragraphs that consists of five factual sentences chained together and cleverly worded in such a way as persuade you of something absolutely untrue or for which is there is no evidence. You'll find NYT repeating "facts" they reported early on, and then themselves debunked. And of course, the plague of "anonymous" sources (sometimes these anonymous sources are just, literally, the PR department saying 'report this anonymously so it seems like a leak) that have their own agendas and which tell the NYT BS over and over, but somehow still get an airing.

This has increasingly happened with topics I know about over the past five years at accelerating rate. [If you want to be uncomfortable, consider noticing this repeatedly is part of what has driven half of the US mad.]

An interjection here. Not directly related to the NYT article, just your comment.

I feel the entire US has "gone mad". I'm a Canuck, and US and Canadian politics don't 'mesh'. So whenever I've spoken to Americans over the decades, often their politics make little sense, don't align, seem cogent to me. This, of course, I consider normal for a non-local such as myself.

However over the last decade or so, I've noticed that the "two sides" in the US now each turn into gibbering mad lunatics when you discuss certain topics. Prior, I could at least discuss topics, without enraged foaming-at-the-mouth type of responses.

IMO both sides have gone entirely, and completely mad. Politics in the US now seems to have lost all capability to talk to "the other side", and instead transitioned into immutable lines drawn in the sand, adopted with the logic often employed with religion, taken as gospel and truth merely for tribal sake.

It's almost like the death of religion, has transition that same unyielding faith-only, non-empirically backed up logic into politics. On both sides. As if the US psyche requires some faith based belief system as the central core of its existence.

Alternatively, it just could be endless whispers from external, hostile nations... designed to create endless turmoil and the eventual downfall of the US empire. Which, to me, is quite sad.

edit:

To highlight what I mean here... "talking points". In the past, I could have real, meaningful discussions with Americans about political topics.

I'd "say things", and they'd say things back, and we'd have a conversation about a specific political stance. Now, this has devolved into almost everyone, whether left or right, having "talking points". Most often, these talking points have not even been examined by those I'm talking to.

They are simply repeated, without the speaker even having thought of what it means, or even able to debate that position with any clarity.

And again, this is "both sides".

It's like each is merely repeating words from a "holy book", and heresy is the result if one diverges. It's like each side has a Pope, which issues edicts, and even if it doesn't make sense, the duty is to repeat, obey, and try to find wisdom in the words one must follow.

No longer politics. Religion.

Hence my take -- madness.

I pretty much fully agree. I started noticing about five years ago that some people I knew for years were sometimes writing and talking in a way that was essentially gibberish to me. Now it has spread and become sort of what you describe even with old friends. I sometimes cannot even just state what I see with my own eyes without triggering the madness. It's like a decentralized psychological breakdown which I am witnessing from abroad. My phrase "half of the US" was a bit tongue and cheek. Pick your half. [Edit: just to engage the point about religion. It now seems to me that national politics in America is a religion. And maybe this was always and must be the case---if you read the founding documents and follow the early development. What is happening now looks like a potential schism. Staring at the other person and not understanding the words is what a schism looks like. No longer in communion.]

Babylon 5, season 2, episode Geometry of Shadows. The Drazi civil war between green and purple factions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddxIfMRZemc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxds-Co7G1Q

Also, the plot arc around Earth gov was good at demonstrating that cancellations is how fascism starts, not how you fight it.

Interestingly, politics in Poland, a rapidly de-religionizing country, seem to follow the same trend, even though it is a very homogeneous country otherwise.

As a Pole, IMO that's because the non-religious side imported the US extreme-left ideology wholesale, complete with talking points irrelevant to our country. So now we have loud fanatics fighting on both sides.

One of my favorite moments of the past five years is getting called a "trumpist piece of shit". The discussion was something about rural decay and inequality and I think I implied they had reason to be angry. I did not vote for Trump.

In one group of former co-workers I've quit speaking to almost all of them because of the above.

The simplest answer might be that the people running NYT have big egos and can make stubborn emotional decisions when their egos are threatened. I think it’s a point to consider when evaluating what’s published but not necessarily a reason to write off the paper entirely and as you said, not a political media conspiracy.