Hands up who likes criticism – even the constructive kind?
Hmmm.
But who thinks criticism – especially the constructive kind – is important to prevent stagnation, stultification and terminal self-satisfaction?
Not the New York Times, apparently.
After the Jayson Blair fiasco, the Times hired Dan Okrent as its “Public Editor,” essentially an ombudsman role. In that role, Okrent is chiefly remembered for answering the question, “Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper?” with, “Of course it is.” Even though he went on to say that it didn’t matter, Okrent was respected, but not much loved at the paper.
His replacement at Public Editor, one Byron Calame? Not even so much. A four decade veteran of the Wall Steet Journal before signing on with the Times, he earned the enmity of editor-in-chief Bill Keller by initially supporting, and then reconsidering his support, for the story outing the overseas SWIFT banking surveillance program: It turns out that Bush made him do it – support the story that is. He rowed back away from it all by his lonesome.
Calame also wrote questions to the papers editor and publisher – Pinch Sulzberger – on their decision to publish the story about NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program. Questions they declined to answer, being busy men the both of them. So we remain largely unilluminated on the decision process leading to publicly revealing a highly classified and admittedly effective tool against terrorism. I didn’t at the time agree with the paper’s decision to air these stories, and argued – vehemently – against it. I never argued however that they couldn’t have made these decisions or that they broke the law in doing so. Just that they shouldn’t have.
But there’s a profound difference between choosing to reveal inconvenient facts and making them up, or letting falsehoods go uncorrected. Recently the paper published a lurid and – for those of us living in the modern theocracy that is Amerikka, cautionary tale – about a Salvadoran woman who had been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the crime of aborting her pregnancy. Calame had the temerity to point out that this was not, strictly speaking, an entirely accurate representation of what had occurred. It was, em, actually untrue. Translations of the court documents and autopsy report – which the Times fact checkers couldn’t much be bothered with even after the story had been exposed – revealed that instead of an abortion, the woman had been found guilty of post-natal infanticide. Murder of a living, breathing child in any other language. Which would get you prison time even in Manhattan, if I’m not too much mistaken.
If you had anticipated that, faced with the realization that they had published such an inflamatory and grossly inaccurate story, the Paper of Record would swiftly follow up on their mistake by a issuing a prominent recantation – or even a brief note in the “corrections” page – you anticipate in vain.
Silly you.
So, say you’re the editor-in-chief of the New York Times and you’re faced with all of these intractable issues about editorial responsibility and journalistic accuracy. What do you do?
Well, you could always wait out the balance of the Public Editor’s term and then redefine the position:
The two-year term of the current public editor, Byron (Barney) Calame, will conclude in May. There may, or may not, be another.
Cap’n,
I am proud to say I’ve never read a single NYT edition. Something about the elitist, ‘I heart myself and NYC’, Manhatten Uber Alles attitude keeps me away.
Now I learn they make up the stories they purportedly report! Is there no honor??
Why does it seem to be a truism that some of the largest cities in our country have the least trustworthy news institutions? Shouldn’t the opposite be true, given the ability to attract top talent? Or, are we seeing the effects of a couple of generations that have passed through a liberal-controlled education system into the journalism profession (which has evolved into a trade)? Is this symptomatic of society in general today? (Idle thoughts from a semi-idle mind.)
Is that a BAR the fatah dweeb is struggling to carry?
Yup, its a BAR. The rest of the homies probably gave it to him to feel important, y’know like one of the guys.
Probably hasn’t been cleaned or fired in 50 years, but its the thought [or the image] that counts.
I think Calame’s departure is probably the paper’s effort to escape from some hard questions from it’s conservative critics… That and we can’t have one of our own criticizing our own bias now can we?
Jim C
I remember seeing a picture of Bonny Parker posing with a BAR. I thought she looked kinda cute, in a dangerous way. I wonder what became of that piece.
The gun, I mean.
RE: The above picture…way back I had a FNG striker BAR man who if anything was smaller than that useless gomer pecker-head pictured. Once during a very minor contact this FNG from a standing position shoulder fired, on automatic, a full magazine at the bad guys. As expected the laws of physics took over…the BAR rose to the occasion, knocked my little brown brother(I truly loved these guys) over backward into a ditch full of pucker brush and almost fractured his skull in the process. Lessons learned…BAR men should be at least 150 lbs.and they should never shoulder fire the weapon on full automatic from a standing position. Later, in the team house, we all had a good laugh recalling the event…and of course the striker, who survived, was no longer an FNG or a BAR man. Best
PS,Justthisguy, Suggest the devine Ms. Parker was holding a Thompson Sub-Machine and not a BAR… agree completly that the BAR and or the Thompson is a much finer piece.
Web Reconnaissance for 01/04/2007…
A short recon of what?ǂ
Web Reconnaissance for 01/04/2007…
A short recon of whats out there that might draw your attention….
NYT stock was $52 in mid 2002, now it’s at $23 a share and still trending down.
That’s capitalistic justice. Yet the B.S. and underlying agenda still shine on..dummies.
B2
A well-written and well thought-out piece. I found your site thanks to the kind offices of Eric, the Straight White Guy, and I can see why he admires and respects your writing so.
Well thanks, Elisson. I appreciate the kind words.
Dammit, Snake Eater, I was (kinda) serious, there! I’ll take my oath Miss Parker was photographed *posing* with the BAR; that’s a famous pic. I was just curious as to who ended up with lawful posession of the thing. Uh, the firearm.
You know, like what happened to Elvis’s M1, and Jimi Hendrix’s M14, and Alice Sheldon’s mouth pistol, and Alvin York’s Enfield and 1911, and Ernst Stuhlinger’s 98K, and Hans Asperger’s P-38, and…