The New York Times flunked such a test in rejecting a demand by Geraldo Rivera of Fox News for correction of a sentence about him in a column by the paper's chief television critic. ....
Based on the videotape and outtakes I saw, Ms. Stanley certainly would have been entitled to opine that Mr. Rivera's actions were showboating or pushy. But a "nudge" is a fact, not an opinion. And even critics need to keep facts distinct from opinions.
Meanwhile, in the opinion section of The Times, the corrections policy of Gail Collins, the editor of the editorial page, is not being fully enforced. As I have written on my Web journal, Paul Krugman has not been required to correct, in the paper, recent acknowledged factual errors in his column about the 2000 election in Florida.
The Times has long been a trailblazer in its commitment to correcting errors. This is no time to let those standards slip - even when well-known critics and columnists are involved.
I'd like to be a fly on the wall as the editorial offices open tomorrow.
2 comments:
I wonder if this may be a rather unsubtle signal. The last ombudsman left with a column seriously criticizing Krugman for his detachment from reality, the new one is beginning with the same. Is Calame being encouraged by Keller? Gail Collins presides over an editorial page that no longer has any power to influence public opinion. Her lead columnist are old, tired and little more than lethargic cheer leaders for a POV which has diminishing acceptance except among the fringe.
Pinch's brilliant business strategy - seek out additional tired lefties beyond the coastal fringe as new subscribers, appears to be somewhat difficult to implement. Perhaps the political fringe is too heavily concentrated in the geographic fringe for Pinch's brilliance to actually function.
Will the next round of pink slips include Gail Collins and her collection of editorial page clunkers? Is Calame forshadowing a change in Pinch's strategy?
Keller warned that further cuts were coming, I wonder if he will be one of them.
The NYT is playing a double game. Satisfy the religious needs of the coastal fringe while pretending to be all about truth and facts. Only with the latter strategy can they continue to sell into every library in America as the "paper of record". Anyone who reads Krugman's columns with eyes can see that the two don't necessarily mix. When push comes to shove, who's going to lose? My money is on Calame.
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