Sunday Column: A Mind of Their Own, and the Freedom to Speak It

A Mind of Their Own, and the Freedom to Speak It

SEVERAL years ago, the columnist Paul Krugman veered from his usual practice of writing about the economy and began writing columns about the war in Iraq.

“Management let me know that I might make some people happier if I wrote less about that and more about economics,” Mr. Krugman recalled recently in an e-mail.

His response

“I said thanks, and went on doing what I was doing,” he said. “Then Wall Street blew up the world economy, which moved me into comfortable terrain for all concerned.”

The Krugman anecdote is notable because it is rare.

Readers ask me about this on a fairly regular basis: How much freedom do The Times’s star columnists have Are they edited or directed at all Given their stature, would anyone dare

Robert Manson of Marlborough, Mass., posed the question recently in an e-mail:

“I know that Times columnists are free to choose to write what they please, and I certainly consider that to be a good thing. However, I am writing to ask whether there is any type of check on columnists with respect to the subjects they choose, or the tone and content of their pieces.”

Mr. Manson wrote to me just after the publication of a column, “It Takes One to Tango,” by Maureen Dowd. It portrayed President Obama as an introvert who failed to socialize with Republicans and others in ways that would help his cause. It is something Ms. Dowd has written about before, and Mr. Manson thinks it’s enough, already.

“Ms. Dowd is famous for deploying sharply critical remarks about the personal foibles of presidents, and I suppose she should be commended for being nonpartisan about it (she was equally harsh with respect to Presidents Clinton and Bush, although for other reasons),” he wrote. But, describing himself as “an introvert in my own right,” he wondered, “If Ms. Dowd chooses to devote every column she writes over the next four years to ripping the president for failing to schmooze sufficiently,” is she free to do so

To explore the issue, I interviewed Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, and I surveyed the Op-Ed columnists, including Gail Collins, who was the previous editorial page editor. The response was unanimous: Columnists have almost inviolable free rein on subject matter. But that “almost” is important.

One recent exception was Mr. Rosenthal’s directive that columnists not all write about the Newtown school massacre within a day or two of one another.

Another constraint is still more rare: deciding against publishing a column that has been written. Mr. Rosenthal said he had done it only once.

“I had to say, ‘We’re not going to print that column,’ “ he recalled, declining to provide specifics, other than to say it was “inappropriate.” Some time later, the columnist wrote on the same subject in a different way, and the piece was published.

But for the most part, columnists write as they see fit for as long as they are granted the platform, which for most of them is a very long time. While they all appreciate their freedom, a few said they wouldn’t mind having a regular sounding board. Ms. Dowd was among this group.

“All writers can use an editor,” she said, “especially those of us charged with ‘stirring the beast,’ as the political cartoonist Pat Oliphant used to call editorializing.”

These writers usually send their columns directly to copy editors, who may raise questions of word choice, clarity and the logic of their arguments. And many of the columnists praise the ability and judgment of those copy editors.

Bill Keller, the former executive editor and now a columnist, thinks the autonomy is good: “The last thing you want is a stable of columnists who conform to a party line; or who sound the same; or who are timid about saying something provocative. You do want columnists to be fair, to deal in facts, to be reasonably civil, and to be clear and readable.” He does not think the columnists are untouchable on those grounds.

But, as the Krugman story suggests, trying to direct The Times’s columnists can be an exercise in humility. Mr. Rosenthal offered an analogy: “I can tell my cat to sit, and sometime within the next six months the cat will sit, and I can take credit for it.”

But he agrees that it is important to “tell people what you think and give feedback.” This happens, he said, in many ways, including regular (at least annual) dinners that he and the Times publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., have with each columnist.

Still, the writers are largely on their own. As Ms. Collins put it, “You are on a tightrope without a net â€" but you get used to it.”

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My blog has featured two recent posts about a much discussed and contested test drive of the Tesla Model S electric car, which was described in a review published on Feb. 10. Many readers, prompted in part by a protest from the Tesla chief executive, objected to the reporting and methodology of the piece, and said it raised journalistic integrity issues.

Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 24, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: A Mind of Their Own, and the Freedom to Speak It.