23
Jan
Times Public Editor Dan Okrent Responds
Dear Rory,
Good to hear from you — and good as well to see what your reporting has produced. I wish it were otherwise, but business editor Lawrence Ingrassia told me he felt the Metro story was, in the context of his area of coverage, “pretty marginal.”
I disagree. I think it merited at least a brief item, specifically because it involved The Times. I agree with the general proposition that overcovering the Times Company can be inappropriately self-conscious and not particularly of use to readers. (This isn’t necessarily Ingrassia’s position, but it’s one I’ve heard expressed by several others around her.) But in this instance, even if the fact of the Metro editors’ behavior didn’t rise to coverage in The Times, the story has gotten larger (partly through the Herald’s use of it) as it has ripened.
I can say with quite a bit of confidence that there was no conscious effort to repress the story, nor do I believe anyone in corporate management got involved in the coverage decision. Ingrassia and I may disagree on this decision, but I can assure you that his hands are clean.
Yours,
Dan
Dan Okrent, Public Editor of the NY Times, writes “[(Metro editor’s) - confusing reference - is he talking about Metro exec’s who made the offensive racist remarks or the fact that Metro reporters did not report it?] behavior didn’t rise to coverage of the Times”. Say what? With this attitude, Watergate, a “simple” break-in would have remained that had the press not, and, yes, NOT the Times, continued to follow the story which resulted in the first resignation in history of a sitting President of the United States of America.
He also wrote that this information [considered
by the Times editor(s)] was “not particularly of use to readers”. OH!!!! ALL the white people who would invest in Times and Metro and have a financial stake in the buy-out could care less? Of course, no black investor would care either that the execs of Metro make offensive racist remarks at company functions. This is, after all, seemingly boys being boys, and should not be confused as the barometer of a well-run, professional company. They still don’t understand why we have our nickers in a twist! Can’t imagine why ANYONE would want the Times to lower themselves to publish facts which reveal what is REALLY going on in a company which might help one, an investor, of any race make an informed decision. God, the white one, forbid! So, folks, in the words of Lawrence Inglassia, business editor of the NY Times, this story is “pretty marginal”. So, why are we getting livid and MORE livid - simple - corporate ignorance, incompetence, and cluelessness!!! - up to and including - The White House!!!!! They are a corporation aren’t they? They seem to take pride in acting like they are.
The irony, I think of it all, is that Mr. Okrent was concerned about “inappropriately self-concious” reporting of the Times reporting stories about itself or its concerns!!! LOL falling off my chair and rolling on the floor. If there was EVER a time when Times should be self-concious it should be now, and the fact they ignored this entire story is INAPPROPRIATE! Didn’t they just publish a public apology about how they didn’t investigate the reasons the Administration said we were going to war - WAR! Yeah, we should REALLY trust this corporation to do the right thing even if they knew what it was.
January 23rd, 2005 at 5:58 pm–
I like the part about it ‘ripening.’
All the News that’s Ripe to Print
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January 24th, 2005 at 7:29 pmWhile, frankly, I am too concerned about far worse matters regarding journalistic practices at the N Y Times to be very excited about the Metro/N Y Times Co. mess, this matter does illustrate the pattern practiced by the Times for a long time now. The Times rarely demonstrates any apparent interest in stories that may counter its position on any given matter or, if it does, the story, however important, is printed on page 99, section Z. Their slogan should be “SOME of the News That’s Fit to Print”.
January 25th, 2005 at 1:51 amAn important case in point was the Times’ refusal to print any kind of retraction after all sorts of fake stories, false rumors, lies, and innuendo targeting the Clintons appeared in the Times editorial columns while they resided in the White House and even before Bill Clinton announced his candidacy. The Times was a major player in fomenting the media feeding frenzy hounding the Clintons during the 90’s. All that garbage was fed to the Times by the Republican Party destruction machine, and the Times enjoyed every minute of it.
The Times has survived its own internal journalistic scandals, but at a very damaging price to its integrity. Actually, I believe there’s no integrity left at the Times - or standards, or even common decency - only duplicity, hypocricy, evasion. and cowardice. The Tmes is hardly alone in this respect, but since the decade of the 90’s the “old grey lady” has been flushing herself down the hopper with most of “mainstream” American journalism. The Metro mess is just some of the same
Hi,
Well done for taking a stand on political slant during “news” in the media (yes, it’s a plural). This is something which you can observe on a much smaller scale in the UK, which is probably why we’re even more suspicious than the average US citizen.
The editorial stance on everything in privately-owned media, especially politics, is defined by the position of the owner, and this may be clearer here because there are fewer “owners” and they’re more obviously linked to their “end-product”. It’s possible to be pretty accurate about the number of outlets controlled by, say, Rupert Murdoch.
Also, in the UK we have the BBC, which for all its failings still manages to set a fair standard of editorial neutrality; the BBC news and current affairs department gets accused of bias by all political parties on a fairly regular basis, which is a good sign in my opinion. In the UK, this has led to openly partisan newspapers; the Mirror supports Labour, for instance, the Sun (usually) the Conservatives. People buy papers because they know what position it will take and because they agree with it.
I can see how, in the US, chains of ownership, and therefore editorial bias, would be much harder to establish clearly than they are in the UK. Also, there’s no culturally-agreed standard, which is what the BBC has become over the years. It was our first TV channel, it’s always been a public resource, and it’s still indisputably the benchmark for other TV companies in respect of current-affairs coverage. Because it’s publicly funded it isn’t dependent on big-business sponsorship, and because it’s been around so long it’s become a Tradition, which means a lot in the UK; I don’t like paying the License Fee, but I never underestimate the usefulness of the BBC in giving us a national standard in this way.
Things are simpler here also, because it’s on a vastly smaller scale. Who owns what is very easy to determine. The chains of command aren’t so distinct in the US, and somone needs to make the connections and point them out; where we get the information on which we base our judgements does matter in a democracy. We’re expected to vote on the basis of a distorted and simplified version of the truth about our societies and our governments; no-one can be expected to keep up to date with every political decision taken and the reasons behind it, so depend on what we read or watch or hear. If they can’t be trusted, then it’s important that people should be aware of that.
Manipulation of that for political ends goes back to the Roman Emperors, I don’t think anyone can change that, but sites like yours can point out who is manipulating what and for who’s benefit.
A more simplistic (and maybe truer) way of getting this across might just be a big Family Tree of companies belonging to companies which belong to, say, A. Tycoon or A. Corporation, and point out the axes he/they are grinding; you can bet every media outlet even remotely involved will be reflecting some part of that.
I wish you luck in this brave and necessary campaign; I hope you aren’t counting on making friends here. I think you blew your White House press pass.
holojojo
March 7th, 2005 at 9:07 am