Back from an intentionally unplugged vacation - where I got my news mostly through the print editions of newspapers and an occasional glance at the Twitter feed on my phone - I’m catching up with some of the issues that crossed the public editor’s desk in the past week.
Normally, each one might have made its own column or blog post. But for now, I’ll just mention each, with the possibility of returning to some of them later:
1. Jodi Rudoren’s front-page article on Palestinian young people who throw rocks caused a great many complaints. As is not unusual with articles in this part of the world, it made absolutely no one happy; readers on all sides of the conflict wrote to complain about bias and unfairness. The Times’s associate managing editor for standards, Philip B. Corbett, has responded to the complaints, disagreeing with those who believed the article was biased or that it glamorized the stone-throwers. “We described both the destructive impact on the teenagers themselves and the sometimes deadly consequences for others,†he said, also noting that the article was just one piece of continuing coverage of the region. “It was not meant to address every related issue,†he continued. “But I think it provided a thoughtful, memorable and detailed look that many readers found enlightening.â€
2. The Times got some criticism for its decision to withhold, at the government’s request, the names of some leaders of Al Qaeda in a story about the decision to close embassies. Michael Calderone of The Huffington Post wrote about it, focusing on the decision by McClatchy, another news organization, to use the information when The Times and CNN did not; the McClatchy newspaper chain said its reporting was based on information from Yemen and it received no administration request to withhold it, but almost certainly would not have done so anyway. I’ve written previously on this topic, questioning The Times’s decisions not to publish information at the government’s request. It’s a elicate balance, no doubt, and every case is different. Still, it was heartening to read the words of the McClatchy chief of correspondents Mark Seibel: “We wouldn’t be disposed to honor such a request†from the administration, even if they’d had one.
3. Some readers were puzzled - or worse - about the timing of a profile of Katharine Weymouth, the publisher of The Washington Post, which appeared in The Times’s Styles section a day before The Post announced that it had been bought by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. One reader, Ed Kosner (the journalist who was top editor of Newsweek under Katharine Graham), wanted to know “how The Times managed to publish a bouquet to Katharine Weymouth on Sunday without a hint that the paper she was so heroically trying to save would be sold to Jeff Bezos the next day.†Ms. Weymouth later defended the Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, sayin under no circumstances would she have hinted to The Times about the sale since The Post itself hadn’t reported it. The story’s timing was unfortunate, to say the least â€" especially since Ms. Weymouth has been publisher for more than five years.
4. A few months ago, an article in The Times Magazine - a personal recollection of a man who was aboard a plane that had trouble in the sky - caused many complaints from aviation experts including James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic. Eventually, an editor’s note was appended to the article, linking to a blog post that took up and admitted some problems in how it was written and edited. I wrote about the subject twice. Now, a Frequent Fier interview in Business Day has Mr. Fallows, and others, once again questioning an aviation-related piece’s veracity and calling for more thorough fact-checking and sourcing on flying articles.
5. Finally, a reader, Stephen Barrett, wrote to complain about an article in Real Estate, with the print-edition headline “The ‘Leave Me Alone’ Zone,†which described how some New Yorkers are buying property they don’t intend to live in. He wrote: “I’d love to buy a studio or one-bedroom someday and now learn that I would have to compete with buyers looking for non-living space. Still, must The Times always devote its resources to articles about people who have so much that they need even more? Please, please assign a reporter to the poverty beat, or the just-getting-by beat, who looks at the struggles of more than young college graduates. New York City’s cost of living, and whether it is strangling the city’s vibrancy, should be the biggest issue in the mayoral race. Buying a co-op to dabble as a writer or for storage? Try looking at that critically.†I’ve written previously abou the need for more poverty coverage at The Times, and I liked Mr. Barrett’s “just-getting-by†idea, too. I have no objection to the specific article he mentions but his broader point is worth some attention.
