Are there any NYT columnists who are worth reading?

I tend to like Frank Bruni. He can be a bit pompous, but he’s generally smart and he writes well.

Bruni likes his thesaurus extension a bit too much, just like Maureen Dowd, but I like him otherwise.

They ALL suck

Agree that generally Frank Bruni is good. So is Michelle Goldberg.

So many of them are so bad. Brent Staples is crotchety and annoying; Maureen Dowd is so out of it and yet still thinks of herself as this still-sexy (!!) contrarian; Ross Douthat is conservative and Catholic and square; Charles Blow has a good heart, but he tends to become absolutely hysterical and overwrought.

I like Michelle Goldberg probably the best, and I usually find John McWhorter very sensible and intelligent. Thomas L. Friedman is fine when he has something substantive to say (like when there are wars going on), but tends to phone it in at other times. Paul Krugman is usually very smart.

Frank Bruni was one of the worst, but then considerably upped his game and became quite smart and timely. He is too impressed with his recent stint as a professor of journalism at Duke, however (it is something he drops CONSTANTLY into his columns).

Frank Rich left for New York magazine. He loved FOLLIES!!!

Jamelle Bouie is excellent. His work is extremely thoughtful and deeply historically grounded.

Paul Krugman is a generally quite reliable guide to what is going on economically. He's been a NYT columnist for something like 20 years now but still manages to be informative and entertaining.

Michelle Goldberg is hit or miss, but worth reading for the hits.

As for the rest, the less said the better. Pamela Paul May be the worst op ed columnist writing for a prestige news outlet.

Also, Tressie McMillan Cottom is only a semi-regular contributor, but she's always interesting and insightful. She frequently makes points and explores angles that I don't see anywhere else.

I cancelled my subscription months ago.

For years, when I ventured into the Op-Ed page, everything was so embarrassingly obvious. Krugman was the only one I read regularly and he stopped publishing as much. I read Gail Collins because she reminded me of Erma Bombeck. Michelle Goldberg is reliable but she’s not saying anything earth-shattering or more informative - she’s representing an existing view. I do like her.

I hadn’t read Mo Dowd since the ‘90s. Frank Bruni is a try hard and always has an air like he’s telling the establishment, “let me try to speak to my people.”

The NYT has become a publication known for its puzzles and recipes. And I can get those elsewhere without having to support corporate media.

As if they haven’t had enough editorial scandals over the years - Judith Miller, anyone? Jayson Blair? Their “Whitewater” coverage in the ‘90s presaged their coverage of the 2016 election. Even their arts coverage no longer has the authority it once did though that may have something to do with the lack of authority the arts have in Manhattan now, comparative to other ages in NYC.

Plus, Ross Douthat and Brett Stephens? They never address anything going on in their nearly decimated party, as if that’s completely normal and are just there to stick it to “liberals” like the rest of the editorial board (not including columnists). I don’t need to pay their salaries.

The best thing you can do for the NYT is cancel your subscription.

Support independent media.

Agree with R7 about Jamelle Bouie. Always learn something new from his columns.

Jamelle bouie is a good one

I enjoy John McWhorter

I used to enjoy John McWhorter until I found out about his connections to the Manhattan Institute and the American Enterprise Institute (right wing think tanks.) And it shows in some of his articles.

Bouie makes an excellent point in this clip

Another vote for Krugman.

I like Michelle Goldberg, Frank Bruni, Paul Krugman, David French, David Brooks, and Brett Stephens.

Maureen Dowd is a great lampoonist.

I first came to McWhorter in his writings on linguistics; I used some of his excerpts, accessible books on Black English (AAVE as it is known) with my undergrads. His moderately conservative politics emerged for me only later, when I started reading his op/ed pieces. As conservatives go, I find him intelligent and reasonable, even when I disagree with his positions. If more conservatives were like him, maybe we could productive public dialogues.

Not referring to the posters above; but there seems to be a Bot-planted meme designed to undermine trust in all legitimate U.S. news sources.

The propagators conflate editorial/opinion writers with the news portions of the papers themselves, and then invariably suggests we all “cancel our subscriptions” as a way of teaching “them” a lesson.

McWhorter's pal and podcast co-host Glenn Loury (who recently published a good memoir) leans quite a bit more conservative than McWhorter (who, in any case, voted for Obama twice, for Hillary, and for Biden). They have both been quite critical and skeptical of Harris ("Kamala was foisted on us").