The Rhetorical Origin Of The New York Times’Credibility And Authority

Whether in transmitting information or in carrying values and beliefs, mass media perform indispensable functions in modern society and their influences can never be underestimated. Scholars and researchers at different periods have done quite a few studies and analyses in this sense.While extensive attention has been paid to media study, few studies so far have drawn attention to the source of the credibility or prestige media enjoy. This paper undertakes to remedy this neglect by taking a close look at how the New York Times (NYT) has managed to gain its status of credibility and authority not just in the U.S. but throughout the world. For this purpose, we adopt a rhetorical as opposed to a conventionally language-oriented perspective. With the introduction of the rhetorical theory, we define rhetoric as "the practice of influencing thought, feelings, attitude and behavior through symbolic means" in our thesis. As a result, rather than simply focusing on an analysis of NYT’s news articles at the linguistic and the textual level, we make great efforts to throw light on other, even more crucial symbolic means which NYT has been employing to project its institutional image as a reliable source of news and opinions. Through this study, we hope to gain a better and deeper understanding of the origin of NYT’s credibility and authority from the viewpoint of western rhetoric.