The New York Times según Frank Rich, que se va

Frank Rich es lo que por aquí llamamos un malparit. Es un concepto intraducible o no sé cómo traducirlo bien. Quédese tranquilo o tranquila: es cariñoso. Después de 17 años deja la Dama Gris. Ayer escribió su última columna en el diario. Dice:

[…] I have decided to move on from Op-Ed columnizing (as Bill Safire called it) to a fresh adventure in journalism at New York magazine. It was a highly personal decision and I’ve been weighing it for some time. 

My decision is no reflection on The Times. This paper remains a nonpareil platform for writing a column — not just for its readership, but also for its journalistic freedom. During my time on the page, the most frequent question I’ve been asked by readers is: Did The Times ever censor you, or try to censor you? The answer is no. The same, by the way, was true when my theater reviews regularly antagonized some of the paper’s biggest advertisers. 

That’s just one of countless reasons I leave The Times feeling as reverent about it as I did when I arrived. Neither it nor any other institution is infallible, as was illustrated most recently during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. But The Times is our essential news organization, and more so now than ever, when so many others have dwindled in size, ambition and scope. Should anyone have even an iota of doubt about The Times’s crucial role in helping its readers navigate the tumult of the 21st century, just revisit its reportage from the roiling tempests of the Middle East in recent weeks. There is nothing like it in American journalism, and that will still be the case whether you read The Times on paper or get it beamed directly into your brain once Apple unleashes that app.

Léala toda. No sé si quedan muchos como Rich. Qué envidia.