Although the nytimes has always served as a mouthpiece for the current administration (this is how they get such good access, this is why they have remained on friendly terms with the Trump admin despite their mainly liberal readership), they have always run the occasional piece of real interest contrary to the official narrative (i.e. real journalism).

For example during the Obama administration (which increased the use of drone & missile attacks globally) they posted this inditement of the assassination without trial of a teenage American citizen:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-ki...