Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

January 3, 2007 By Fausta

Bye-bye, Barney?


Via Pajamas Media, Will Bill Keller End ‘Public Editor’ Slot at The Times?
Dan Okrent Protests; Faithful Barney Calame Sputters Weary Defense

Mr. Calame’s Dec. 31, 2006, column was a stern – and, for him, unusual – attack on a story in The Times Magazine that mischaracterized a Central American court ruling, and on the editors who have defended the story without further investigation, and on standards editor Craig Whitney, who is tersely quoted in the column saying that he is not yet ready to issue any correction. It was a far cry from his previous column, on Dec. 3, 2006: “Scoops, Impact or Glory: What Motivates Reporters?” (A: All of the above!) Or the one before that: “Breaking News: Can Times Quality Be Preserved Online?” (A: Probably!)

If the public-editor column is killed – not entirely likely, given Mr. Sulzberger’s devotion to it – what about the 1,400-word slot? Andrew Rosenthal, who takes over as editorial-page editor on Jan. 7, said that he was not aware a change was under consideration. “The executive editor hires the public editor,” said Mr. Rosenthal. “He tells us who it is.”

As Michelle Malkin put it,

It’s clear the New York Times can’t stand the heat. Their stonewalling on the El Salvador abortion story (subject of today’s column) is the final nail in the paper’s credibility coffin.

Michelle’s column, All the abortion lies fit to print, explains,

Although Sarah H. Smith, the magazine’s editorial manager, told me that relevant court documents are ‘normally’ reviewed, Mr. Hitt never checked the 7,600-word ruling in the Climaco case while preparing his story. And Mr. Hitt told me that no editor or fact checker ever asked him if he had checked the court document containing the panel’s decision.”

Obtaining the public document was as easy as requesting that a stringer for the Times in El Salvador walk into the court building without making any prior arrangements. Which is exactly what Calame did. It took the stringer mere minutes to get the court ruling.

The Anchoress quotes Hamlet in her post where she says,

Sometimes I observe how audaciously some in the media press their perspectives, even if it requires some distortion, and I get angry because the disrespect for public intelligence is so insulting. I feel a little like Hamlet facing his betraying friend, Guildenstern

(you’ll find the exact quote at her blog)

But Barney should never fear: if he gets fired, his subscription will never end.

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Filed Under: NYT

December 30, 2006 By Fausta

How I almost made $5 this morning

As the NYT won’t listen to my very assertive requests to cancel my subscription, I browsed through the contents of this morning’s edition and found their annual Sunday Magazine obituary issue, quaintly named “The Lives They Lived”.


The front page shows in neon signs JUNE ALLYSON EUGENE LANDY STEVE HOWE and a dozen others. Before looking inside, I said to The Husband, who was just getting out of bed and had walked into the kitchen for a glass of water,

I bet you $5 they don’t mention Jeane Kirkpatrick.

The Husband might have been half-asleep but is very familiar with the NYT editorial criteria.

He declined to wager. Darn.

Sure enough, no Jeane Kirkpatrick. Instead, they had Anais Nin’s “other husband”, and the Naked Guy. Can’t say I had heard of those two before.

At least The Economist showed more grace: in their year-end “Special Holiday Double Issue”, they have her obituary, along with op-ed comment (“Certain sentences from her most famous article, “Dictatorships and Double Standards” – written on her summer holiday in France, published in Commentary magazine in November 1979 – now induce a sigh.” [link added], and we all know how deeply The Economist has been sighing):


Her actual job was ambassador to the United Nations, the first woman to do it. She found the UN a dangerous place, the work miserable, and Security Council debates “more like a mugging than anything else”. There, too, her shade seemed to haunt the corridors in the days before she died. Her style at the General Assembly was a model for John Bolton’s, confrontational and blunt to a degree, and the present ambassador, as he resigned amid general hooting, candidly acknowledged his debt to her. But times were different then. Mrs Kirkpatrick represented an America that had become, under Jimmy Carter, an apologetic and unconfident country. She saw no need to compromise or conciliate on anything, but instead came out furiously fighting against the “expansionist” Soviet Union and its client states. “There is…only one revolutionary society in the contemporary world,” she cried in 1984, “and that is our society.”

America still remains the one revolutionary society in the contemporary world. Thank you, Ambassador Kirkpatrick.

———————————————-

Cinnamon Stillwell writes about how the Experts Discover Men And Women Are Different! Cinnamon explains,

The manly virtues include character, confidence, honor, inner strength, pride, responsibility, loyalty, generosity, industry and dignity.

The antidote to the trans confusion, male girlfriends, and weepie guys? The Discovery Channel Guys, of course! Not one wuss in the lot – and Bear Grylls looks great without a shirt on.

Unfortunately he waited to take off his shirt until he was adrift on the Pacific Ocean, but still…

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Filed Under: Discovery Channel, Economist, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Man vs. Wild, NYT

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