After gaslighting on the economy, over a thousand New York Times workers claim conditions make office work impossible.

It is bad enough when the elitists in the media condescend to their readership, acting as if the citizens of the country are monosyllabic drones ready to swallow any bit of treacle delivered by the various outlets. But what is normally amusing or easily dismissed pablum becomes intolerable when you witness these outlets treating their own reality as a far different experience than what is being sold.

Two events played over the last couple of days to display this repellent double standard.

Yesterday was slated to be the day when The New York Times saw its complete workforce returning to work in the paper’s offices. Mostly. This week, the workers were to be required to spend a minimum of three days on-site, as our country’s alleged cultural center – New York City – is still shrugging off the last vestiges of the pandemic lockdown. The supposed educated class running the city was last to grasp the folly of the COVID clampdowns.

The other reality to land was today’s announcement that inflation had actually increased in the month of August. This was after news outlets attempted to fog their audience into believing that there was no inflation in July. (Prices were, in fact, still rising, just not as rapidly as before.) Now, suddenly, reporters had to find ways of turning this into less bad news, as the reports were “unexpectedly” worse, as usual. Here is where the two realities collide on the front step of the New York Times building.

Joining the crowd of news outlets, the Times delivered today its version of the revisionist spreadsheet, trying to insist that, while not great news, it still was not dire. You get an early sense of the contortions needed when you see the phrase, “Overall inflation moderated less than anticipated” being employed. This after trying to insist that consumers were going to be feeling less pressure.

The Consumer Price Index for August may show a moderation as gas prices fall, easing the pressure on households and the Biden administration as falling gas prices paved the way to less financial pain. https://t.co/RSCvObk7Qs

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 13, 2022

Yet, while busy working to spin the bad figures as much as possible, at the same time the paper was dealing with strife with its workforce. There is a protracted labor dispute with the various unions at the Times, and as a result, when this week’s scheduled in-person return was to take place a significant number of those persons balked. Reports are that over 1,300 Times employees declared they would not be returning to the cubical farms.

Are you ready for the reason? Inflation.

The very impact that so many of us are contending with on a regular basis while being told it is not as bad as we experience, is said to be unsustainable for those people attempting to persuade us on the conditions. 

“People are livid,” Tom Coffey told The Post. A 25-year veteran editor at the NYT, he works on the news desk and serves on the union’s Contract Action Committee. He added that being forced to return to the office during a period of high inflation means workers will have to spend more money on gas, mass transit, clothing and lunches, despite the lack of salary increases.

Living in the gaslight approaches the unreal. You mean to tell us these distressed Times staffers have to endure the economic hardships they are pretending in print are softships, facing the stark challenges brought about by the President they insisted to the country had to be elected to turn things around? Instead, they have pretended Biden is not auguring us into the substrata all the while coming to terms with a financial reality in their own lives.

Sympathy is certainly not an emotion that is capable of emerging with this dichotomy playing out. Shopping on resale sites for a used mouthguard is in order, as the dental visit following the teeth-grinding reaction to this revelation is now cost-prohibitive.