Skip to main content
Sunday, November 15, 2026Nov 15

Opinion: Drug chains, opioids – and broken news

Photo by Tony Dejak of The Associated Press / A man walks through downtown Painesville, Ohio, in Lake County, on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. Three retail pharmacy chains recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, in a verdict that could set the tone for U.S. city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid crisis.
Photo by Tony Dejak of The Associated Press / A man walks through downtown Painesville, Ohio, in Lake County, on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. Three retail pharmacy chains recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2021, in a verdict that could set the tone for U.S. city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid crisis.

Back in the days (not so long ago!) when dead trees, properly pulverized, were print journalism’s most reliable source for spreading the news, we all understood two things about America’s greatest newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post:

1. They were indeed great newspapers – but not always good ones.

2. You could always find a great front-page news story in The Times and The Post – if you kept turning enough pages.

And so it was, Wednesday morning, when I checked out their Page 1 news displays, side-by-side.

In the middle of The New York Times’ front page, above the fold, was a news story that immediately commanded my attention: “Retail Chains Found at Fault in Opioid Crisis.”