Why do you think so?

Not the original commentor.

As a longer time and now former NYT reader, it has definitely fallen off. It's abandoned balance and objectivity for trite left-leaning talking points. The breakup came when I realized I could not longer trust it to inform me to the depth and breadth I needed.

At this point, it's an average news publication - notice I didn't say journalism - riding on the fumes of its history. It's not bad. But every since the internet its become more and more generic.

Because publications like the NYT depend on access for their "journalism" [0]. Independent/investigative journalism requires an adversarial relationship to power, and looks more like [1]. In past decades, the establishment was occasionally forced to grapple with this [2] [3] but at this point the public discussion is so captured, it's no longer necessary.

Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent lays it out in depth.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/corres... [1] https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/releases/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee [3] https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/27/archives/cia-established-...

The Guardian is one of the best examples of independent journalism. It's owned by the Scott Trust. It was set up by the original owner in the 30s to ensure editorial independence. People do sometimes confuse "editorial independence" with "taking an editorial line I personally disagree with", however.