In an unintentionally hilarious article, New York Times scribes Bill Carter and Brian Stelter manage to analyze the ratings fall of NBC News without ever considering the effects of the swing to Obama sycophancy that has characterized that operation.  In fresh memory, one finds, for example, the outrageous editing of George Zimmerman's 911 call to make it appear he was racist, Andrea Mitchell's outrageous editing of a Mitt Romney speech on MSNBC  to make it appear he is an out of touch dolt (omitting the central point of his discussion of ordering a sandwich at WaWa and laughing on air at him), and the network's evening news broadcast failure to inform viewers about Fast and Furious until the Issa committee voted him in contempt of Congress.

Because self-identified conservatives are the largest group in the American public, twice a numerous as self-identified liberals, such obvious and flagrant bias not only destroys credibility  earned over decades, it also obviously drives away viewers.

The Times' focus on personalities is a case of examining the deck chairs as the Titanic is sinking. The iceberg is bias. Of course, to admit that downplaying Fast and Furious is bad for credibility and bad for retaining an audience would tend to reflect rather badly on the Times editors as well. It would not surprise me if the two journalists wrote something about the widespread perception of NBC bias, but their editors deep sixed any such reference.

Like NBC News, the New York Times is suffering a decline in its audience, and is hewing ever more strongly to the left.  Both organizations will continue to suffer as they refuse to recognize the source of their problems.