On Twitter this week, the journalist Peter Maass pointed out an example of a Times story that used anonymous sourcing heavily.
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The Public Editor’s Sunday Column: An Uneasy Mix of News and Opinion |
The Times needs to do a better job of helping readers tell news articles from opinion pieces.
A Close Call on Publication of Charlie Hebdo Cartoons
By Margaret SullivanWas The Times cowardly and lacking in journalistic solidarity when it decided not to publish the images from the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that precipitated the execution of French journalists?
Some readers I’ve heard from certainly think so. Evan Levine of New York City wrote: “I just wanted to register my extreme disappointment at what can only be described as a dereliction of leadership and responsibility by the New York Times in deciding not to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons after today’s massacre.”
Todd Stuart of Key West, Fla., expressed the same view: “I hope the public editor looks into the incredibly cowardly decision of the NYT not to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. I can’t think of anything more important than major papers like the NYT standing up for the most basic principles of freedom.”
And many outside commenters and press critics agreed. Jeff Jarvis of City University of New York wrote: “If you’re the paper of record, if you’re the highest exemplar of American journalism, if you expect others to stand by your journalists when they are threatened, if you respect your audience to make up its own mind, then dammit stand by Charlie Hebdo and inform your public. Run the cartoons.”
Dean Baquet’s ‘Charting the Future’ Note to Times Staff
By Margaret SullivanA turbulent year at The Times is over, and with that, the executive editor, Dean Baquet, has written a lengthy note to the newsroom staff, titled “Charting the Future.” After writing about this myself last week, I thought that readers might like this inside look. Mr. Baquet did not object to the internal document being made public. Here it is:
17 Hopes and Dreams for The Times in the New Year
By Margaret Sullivan1. Presidential campaign coverage that does not seem based on the idea that the presidency is dynastic, and must be handed down to a Clinton or a Bush.
2. More skepticism from the get-go. For example, when government officials say (anonymously, of course) that North Korea is behind the Sony hack, give more emphasis, early on, to knowledgeable dissenters. That is very likely to serve readers better from the start, and might require less walking-back later when the story line changes.
3. A brilliant new revenue scheme to capitalize on the popularity of mobile devices.
From a Writer and From Readers, Strong Opinions on Campus Rape Accusations
By Margaret SullivanIn the history of The New York Times, the words “Sports of The Times” have a storied and well understood meaning. They accompany an opinion column, written by a staff member, including such prizewinning luminaries as Red Smith and Dave Anderson.
But the words don’t mean much to a vast new audience of digital readers who approached a recent column — carrying the “Sports of The Times” label — about a rape accusation against the Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston, thinking that they were reading straight news.
When the piece by Juliet Macur took a sharp turn into pointed commentary after a few introductory paragraphs, those readers took offense.
AnonyWatch: Department of Ridiculous Reasons
By Margaret SullivanFor many months now, I’ve been keeping track of the overuse of anonymous sources in The Times as a way of discouraging a practice that readers rightly object to. The practice continues apace — as do ever-more-inventive reasons for granting anonymity.
Sony Emails, Free Speech — and Trying a Little ‘F2F’
By Margaret SullivanSomewhere in academia, an enterprising law professor is putting together a lecture on the hacked Sony emails, considering the legal and free-speech issues they raise.
This post will be considerably less lofty, but let’s take a look at some of the questions, and the strong opinions that have emerged in the past few weeks since the so-called Guardians of Peace, thought to be linked to the North Korean government, made its massive cyberattack on the entertainment conglomerate.
The Public Editor’s Sunday Column: When The Government Says, “Shh!” |
With the release of the Senate report on torture, The Times must think long and hard before it agrees to any government request to withhold information on national security grounds.
A Tumultuous Year at The Times
By Margaret SullivanMy posting here has fallen off this week, but for pretty good reasons. I’ve been focused on two things. The first is on giving the commencement address Friday morning for the City University of New York’s graduate journalism school. It’s a great honor, and I thought it would be good to come up with something slightly more original than “wear sunscreen,” although that’s excellent advice.
In addition, I’ve been writing a column for Sunday Review on the topic of The Times’s changing views with regard to deferring to government requests to withhold reported information. The recent Senate torture report provides the news peg for the column with revelations about a withheld story in 2002.
Hacked Emails, ‘Air–Kissing’ — and Two Firm Denials
By Margaret SullivanA BuzzFeed story, published Thursday, based on leaked Sony Pictures emails, reports that the Pulitzer-winning Times columnist Maureen Dowd promised the husband of an interview subject an advance look at her column.
The column quoted Amy Pascal, the co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures. She is married to a former Times reporter, Bernard Weinraub, who BuzzFeed reported served as an intermediary in getting Ms. Pascal to comment for the column about women’s roles and salaries in Hollywood.
Ms. Dowd is on her way to a new writing assignment for the Times Magazine but, according to an announcement about it several months ago, she is to continue writing her Sunday column.
The Torture Report and The Times
By Margaret SullivanThe Senate Intelligence Committee’s stunning report on torture, with its retelling of post-9/11 brutality and depravity by representatives of the American government, raises at least two questions about the editorial policies of The New York Times.
In this post, I’ll merely lay them out and aggregate some material about them, with my brief comment. I’ll return to the second one in greater depth in a column. (I should note here that it has not been the role of The Times’s public editor to investigate or comment on work that happened in the fairly distant past; I do so here only because these events may provide insight on current practices.) Here they are:
Free Flow of Government Information? Yawn.
By Margaret SullivanAmid big-time Washington news like the torture report, a nomination for attorney general and cameras for police officers, a bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, or F.O.I.A., may seem pretty unsexy.
Apparently so, because it’s been mostly ignored by much of the mainstream media, including The Times, in recent days, as a retiring senator held up the legislation and it nearly went down the drain. That didn’t happen; the bill — a version of which received bipartisan support in the House — passed in the Senate on Monday with Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, releasing his hold.
How to Survive a Journalistic Disaster 101
By Margaret SullivanHow does a journalistic institution respond to a soul-shaking crisis? Rolling Stone magazine is dealing with that question at the moment, after its article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia went south late last week.
The article, published last month, had been criticized by various media outlets for its reliance on a single anonymous source and for the writer’s failure to interview the men accused of rape. And on Friday, the magazine issued a misdirected correction that acknowledged discrepancies in the woman’s account, but seemed to blame the source rather than take responsibility. It was later changed, without explanation to readers. (Erik Wemple at The Washington Post has a more complete summary of the story’s developments.)
The Public Editor’s Sunday Column: Journalism in the Time of Ebola |
The Ebola outbreak has led The Times to marshal extraordinary forces to cover the disease, and its human toll.