NYT's Okrent Leaving With Warning to The Readers

[Annie]

I don't know if Okrent is leaving the NYT totally, but he has decided to step down as the ombudsman. Looks like too, the NYT is changing the position to be 'written when someone feels like it.' In this column he warns readers what to watch for, when reading the 'competive' papers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/weekinreview/10okrent1.html?

Last Wednesday, a lengthy Editors' Note on Page A2 scooped a scoop I had planned on the toxicity of scoops. The note addressed irregularities in a March 31 front-page article by Karen W. Arenson, "Columbia Panel Clears Professors of Anti-Semitism." The Times, the note explained, had been given a one-day jump on other media in exchange for its agreement not to "seek reaction from other interested parties." While acknowledging that this was in violation of Times policy, the note said "editors and the writer did not recall the policy and agreed to delay additional reporting until the document had become public." It concluded, "Without a response from the complainants" - the students who had brought the anti-Semitism charges - "the article was incomplete; it should not have appeared in that form."

Samuel Glasser, a reader in Port Washington, N.Y., who identifies himself as a former reporter and editor with three major newspaper chains, spoke for many: "The idea that editors and reporters would even have to be told not to do such a thing in the first place, let alone that they would 'forget' the policy, defies belief."

But I believe it all too readily. Unless they're enforced by a hanging judge, a mountain of policies (The Times has an Everest's worth; you can find most at www.nytco.com/press.html) will not deter editors and reporters from the heart-pounding, palm-sweating, eye-goggling pursuit of scoops. (Managing editor Jill Abramson told me that the Editors' Note "speaks for itself.") Wanting to be first, to beat the competition, to compel other media to say "as reported yesterday in The New York Times" puts the paper in a position where it can build staff spirit, expand its reputation and win prestigious journalism prizes. And be manipulated like Silly Putty, too...

On the 'editor-at-large' column:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000874870

...The public editor’s column will also appear on the spread but, in what appears to be a change, Collins said the column will run whenever the ombud chooses to write one. Outgoing public editor Dan Okrent wrote pretty much on an every-other-week schedule but his newly named successor Barney Calame has said he might not want to provide one quite that often...

 

[William Joyce]

Wow. I kinda liked that dude. I did see something cryptic in the Times today about "Daniel Okrent... and his successors..." and I thought, wow, he's out? But E&P has the name of the successor.

Okrent was great because I think he sympathized with conservatives. He wrote some pretty stinging stuff about how the Times covered the gay marriage issue so positively. Hmmmmmm........

 

[Annie]

Wow. I kinda liked that dude. I did see something cryptic in the Times today about "Daniel Okrent... and his successors..." and I thought, wow, he's out? But E&P has the name of the successor.

Okrent was great because I think he sympathized with conservatives. He wrote some pretty stinging stuff about how the Times covered the gay marriage issue so positively. Hmmmmmm........

I agree. Some of his columns have been pretty stinging. I think the move down was voluntary, but I would imagine he's not the most popular guy on staff.

As he said, it's not the 'policies' that need to be addressed, rather the enforcement. (Sounds kind of like our illegal immigration problem.)

 

[Annie]

I don't know if Okrent is leaving the NYT totally, but he has decided to step down as the ombudsman. Looks like too, the NYT is changing the position to be 'written when someone feels like it.' In this column he warns readers what to watch for, when reading the 'competive' papers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/weekinreview/10okrent1.html?



UPDATE:

On the 'editor-at-large' column:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000874870

Well Sunday his last column in this position ran, again he wrote some pretty harsh stuff:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/w...00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

May 22, 2005
13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did
By DANIEL OKRENT

AND so all good (and tense and terrible and exciting) things must come to an end. When I began in this job in December 2003, I had a list of about 20 topics I knew I wanted to address. In the ensuing months, I got to about half of those, and devoted the rest of my time and space to issues that exploded out of the pages of the paper and my e-mail in-box. The 10 I never got to are now hanging in a closet with about 50 others. What follows, you will soon see, is an all but random selection.

1. In my very first column I identified myself as "an absolutist" on the First Amendment. Apart from having come to realize that absolutism in the pursuit of self-definition can be a bit reckless, my thoughts on journalism and the First Amendment have changed considerably. I still cherish the First; I still think it's the cornerstone of democracy. But I would love to see journalists justify their work not by wrapping themselves in the cloak of the law, but by invoking more persuasive defenses: accuracy, for instance, and fairness.

As a corollary, in some arenas the First Amendment may not even be the most effective legal defense. The idea that Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper may soon be imprisoned for not naming a source is nausea-inducing - especially since the source remains free. (No one is suggesting that Miller and Cooper may have broken the law; the source may well have.) Reporters Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus, both of The Washington Post, were represented by criminal lawyers in the same case and are today going on with their lives, while those who have depended on a First Amendment defense may soon be packing for jail.

2. Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales "called the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' " nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. Before his retirement in January, William Safire vexed me with his chronic assertion of clear links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, based on evidence only he seemed to possess.

No one deserves the personal vituperation that regularly comes Dowd's way, and some of Krugman's enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn't mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn't hold his columnists to higher standards.

I didn't give Krugman, Dowd or Safire the chance to respond before writing the last two paragraphs. I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist.

3. Question: What do these characterizations have in common?:

"At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights." - Television critic Alessandra Stanley on Katie Couric, April 25. "A semicelebrated hustler Ms. Lakshmi may be." - Fashion writer Guy Trebay on Padma Lakshmi, Feb. 8 .

"Le mot juste here is 'jackass.' " - Book reviewer Joe Queenan on writer A. J. Jacobs, Oct. 3 .

Answer: Each is gratuitously nasty, and inappropriate in a newspaper that many of us look to as a guardian of civil discussion. I'll put the chart that appeared in the Feb. 20 edition of The Times's T: Women's Fashion magazine, touting oxycontin as a status symbol, in the same repellent category....

...lots more, most of it kinder to the NYT, but heh!

 

[Annie]

I thought this deserved a *bump*

Well Sunday his last column in this position ran, again he wrote some pretty harsh stuff:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/w...00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

May 22, 2005
13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did
By DANIEL OKRENT

AND so all good (and tense and terrible and exciting) things must come to an end. When I began in this job in December 2003, I had a list of about 20 topics I knew I wanted to address. In the ensuing months, I got to about half of those, and devoted the rest of my time and space to issues that exploded out of the pages of the paper and my e-mail in-box. The 10 I never got to are now hanging in a closet with about 50 others. What follows, you will soon see, is an all but random selection.

1. In my very first column I identified myself as "an absolutist" on the First Amendment. Apart from having come to realize that absolutism in the pursuit of self-definition can be a bit reckless, my thoughts on journalism and the First Amendment have changed considerably. I still cherish the First; I still think it's the cornerstone of democracy. But I would love to see journalists justify their work not by wrapping themselves in the cloak of the law, but by invoking more persuasive defenses: accuracy, for instance, and fairness.

As a corollary, in some arenas the First Amendment may not even be the most effective legal defense. The idea that Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper may soon be imprisoned for not naming a source is nausea-inducing - especially since the source remains free. (No one is suggesting that Miller and Cooper may have broken the law; the source may well have.) Reporters Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus, both of The Washington Post, were represented by criminal lawyers in the same case and are today going on with their lives, while those who have depended on a First Amendment defense may soon be packing for jail.

2. Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales "called the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' " nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. Before his retirement in January, William Safire vexed me with his chronic assertion of clear links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, based on evidence only he seemed to possess.

No one deserves the personal vituperation that regularly comes Dowd's way, and some of Krugman's enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn't mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn't hold his columnists to higher standards.

I didn't give Krugman, Dowd or Safire the chance to respond before writing the last two paragraphs. I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist.

3. Question: What do these characterizations have in common?:
"At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights." - Television critic Alessandra Stanley on Katie Couric, April 25. "A semicelebrated hustler Ms. Lakshmi may be." - Fashion writer Guy Trebay on Padma Lakshmi, Feb. 8 .

"Le mot juste here is 'jackass.' " - Book reviewer Joe Queenan on writer A. J. Jacobs, Oct. 3 .

Answer: Each is gratuitously nasty, and inappropriate in a newspaper that many of us look to as a guardian of civil discussion. I'll put the chart that appeared in the Feb. 20 edition of The Times's T: Women's Fashion magazine, touting oxycontin as a status symbol, in the same repellent category....

...lots more, most of it kinder to the NYT, but heh!