Beyond that what does he think fascists will do to the heads of the heads of newspapers they don't like????

That's exactly the problem. Kahn and his crew determine what's a "top issue" the same way the rest of us do, through algorithm-driven engagement. There's a reason all the major outlets placed a "trending" chyron at the top of their homepages years ago, and that's because they're specifically tailoring their coverage to whatever generates traffic on their and other's websites. Each editor is, after all, a human whose understanding of the world is driven by the content that shows up on their phone, their computer screen, and their television. The fact that media is curated through a narrowing window of social media platforms means that the things that pop onto their radar will be algorithm-influenced. Even if they stepped back and only accepted what polls highly, they'd have to either perform their own real-time polling (yeah right) or point to other polls for emphasis, the results of which have been filtered and amplified according to algorithmic engagement. This is only going to get worse as AI starts to influence the algorithm in real time and we become more and more susceptible to hive-mind coverage where the tail wags the dog.

This is part of the reason 21st century media has skewed so heavily toward sensationalism since 9/11, because for some ungodly reason they've decided that their job is to react to the news, rather than create it. Fuck them. Their spineless "neutrality" is a tool Trump & Co. learned how to play like a fiddle from day one, and by refusing to even entertain the possibility of assisting the left, they've obsequiously and unconsciously become the right's most potent weapon. They are the harbingers of fascism in America, and they're still too fucking dense to see what's coming.

From the article

University of Illinois professor Nicholas Grossman wrote:
Biden’s age isn’t among voters’ top issues in polls, but the NY Times made it a recurring top story anyway. Voters sure didn’t say they care about the president of Harvard, but the Times made that the number one story for days. When NYT editors care, they don’t defer to polls.

It’s incredibly frustrating how far our fourth pillar of democracy has fallen.

You can say that again.

Exactly, every mainstream outlet is owned by billionaires or giant corporations, which is why you don't hear about wealth inequality or union busting in mainstream media.

Not sure if that's a /s but he's why they're not going to do anything good at this time when we need it most.

On first read, I got him confused with the Murdochican stooge the Washington Post just hired to bring in all his buddies and screw up that paper.

I thought 2016 would have taught them a lot of lessons, but it doesn't look like it. Of course, everytime there's a disastrous political fucksplosion (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and the orange rapist) I think everyone's going learn something from it. Maybe but goddamn.

That's what happens when you mix up the Democractic Party and democracy, believing they're the same thing.

Hint: they are not.

No one ever thought we'd have to legislate telling the goddamned truth.

I see how you mean, but let's not cross the streams, so to speak.

Kahn seems to think that polls about what people see as the most important issue should, at least in part, guide the paper’s decisions about what to cover. As a snapshot in time that sounds appropriate;

If that time is 1975. Looking at polls to drive the narrative is the dumbest thing to do in 2024. Polls are complete garbage.

So this is the first sentence of that interview:

I stopped by Joe Kahn’s modest office in the New York Times newsroom Thursday to ask him what some of his readers want to know: Why doesn’t the executive editor see it as his job to help Joe Biden win?

And this is the entire question he was asked:

**Ben Smith: **Dan Pfeiffer, who used to work for Barack Obama, recently wrote of the Times: “They do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.” Why don’t you see your job as: “We’ve got to stop Trump?” What about your job doesn’t let you think that way?

And here's his entire answer:

Joe Kahn: Good media is the Fourth Estate, it’s another pillar of democracy. One of the absolute necessities of democracy is having a free and fair and open election where people can compete for votes, and the role of the news media in that environment is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or the other, but just to provide very good, hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates, and informing voters. If you believe in democracy, I don’t see how we get past the essential role of quality media in informing people about their choice in a presidential election.

To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda. It is true that Biden’s agenda is more in sync with traditional establishment parties and candidates. And we’re reporting on that and making it very clear.

I don't know if that's just an unusual interpretation or if you're being disingenuous but I see the question and his answer as exactly as described. The question was: Why isn't your job stopping an authoritarian, and he says, essentially, "because we don't tell people how to vote". Which is bullshit in 100 different ways. It doesn't answer the question, it makes the exact leap he's accused of in the OP, and he takes the opportunity to shit on Biden with a left-handed compliment and blowing more smoke up everyone's ass.

Oh so he's well aware of his job, he's just a piece of shit not doing it.

That's another thing that's amazing to me. trump shat on these fuckers for YEARS every. single. day. and made their lives hell and here they are just, "doot doot dee doo oh trump's an average guy just, uh, runnin' for president, as one does, uh huh uh huh, yaup" It's just another reason they're idiots, like we needed more reasons.

Here's a thought - maybe defend your profession? A little? Maybe? No? No, he says no.