
New York Times (Opinion)
Important Note: AllSides provides a separate media bias rating for the The New York Times news pages.
This page refers to The New York Times opinion page, including op-ed writers and the Editorial Board. The Editorial Board’s bias is weighted, and affects this bias rating by roughly 60%. Not all columnists for the New York Times display a left bias; we rate many individual writers separately (see end of this page). While there are some right-leaning opinion writers at the Times, overall the opinion page and Editorial Board has a strong Left bias. Our media bias rating takes into account both the overall bias of the source’s editorial board and the paper’s individual opinion page writers.
At least one member of the Supreme Court told Justice Clarence Thomas that there was no problem accepting privately paid luxury trips and other lavish gifts from “close personal friends” without disclosing them, according to a statement issued earlier this month by Justice Thomas. Whoever it was — names were not disclosed — gave him stunningly tone-deaf advice, given the uproar that followed when ProPublica reported that the justice had for more than 20 years accepted lavish gifts and trips from a billionaire conservative friend.
But Justice Thomas’s indulgence is just the latest and most egregious example of a weakness demonstrated by virtually every member of the court for decades, those nominated by Republican and Democratic presidents alike: a willingness to accept freebies, gifts and junkets — both costly and modest — from people and groups who find it useful to be close to nine of the most powerful people in the United States.