Pictures of the Day: Syria and Elsewhere

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Photos from Syria, South Korea, North Korea and Vatican City.

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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.

Prize-Winning Photos and Lingering Questions

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Top honors in the 70th annual Pictures of the Year International contest went to Paolo Pellegrin of Magnum Photos for freelance photographer of the year and Paul Hansen of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyhete for newspaper photographer of the year.

The Denver Post received the prestigious Angus McDougall Overall Excellence in Editing Award. The New York Times was named best newspaper.

The awards were overshadowed by controversy over a photograph (below) that was included in Mr. Pellegrin’s winning entry.

There were inaccuracies in the submitted caption of one image of a former Marine combat photographer, Shane Keller, holding a rifle that was part of a photo essay on the Crescent â€" a rough part of Rochester. In addition, a description for the series was lifted from a decade-old article in The New York Times. The disputed caption and story summary have been removed from the POYi site and replaced by different information provided by Mr. Pellegrin.

On the Web site BagNewsNotes, Mr. Keller, a former photography student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said that the photo misrepresented him, and he raised questions about whether the image was a directed photo, made to look like a found moment. Mr. Pellegrin has vigorously denied the charges of misrepresentation and of staging a photograph, although he admitted mistakes in captioning.

On Wednesday morning, a statement was posted on the POYi contest site next to Mr. Pellegrin’s images from the Crescent, which also won second place for issue reporting stories. It reads:

The spirit of Pictures of the Year International is to honor photojournalists and celebrate their outstanding documentary photography. We do not probe for reasons to disqualify work. POY understands that errors may occur in captions submitte by photographers. We are happy to make corrections and acknowledge the errors. Story summaries and captions are “published” when posted on the POY website. Any misunderstanding regarding self-authorship for “published” captions or story summaries will be corrected by the photographer. POY affirms the awards.

Mr. Pellegrin’s pictures from Rochester also took second prize in news stories in the World Press Photo contest. That organization affirmed the award in a statement on Tuesday.

Rick Shaw, the director of Pictures of the Year International, said in a telephone interview that the quality of the captions on contest entries vary widely and that he received e-mails every year from photographers asking if â€" and why â€" they need to provide captions for the contest.

“It’s photojournalism,” Mr. Shaw said. “It’s the mix between words and pictures. It provides context for the image. It’s the balance between aesthetics and content.”

The conte! st’s ru! les require that all photographs include a caption. Mr. Shaw says he intends to update the entry rules for next year, adding language about self-authorship and accuracy, in captions or story summaries.

“It has to be to the level of being published material,” he said. “Part of that is probably a mistake on our part, in not being diligent about explaining that when a caption or story summary is submitted to POYi, it needs to be to the standard of published work.”

Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum Photos Mr. Pellegrin’s image of Shane Keller has sparked controversy. Mr. Pellegrin was photographer of the year in the freelance/agency category; he won second place in the issue reporting picture story category, the entry for which included this photo as well.

POYi, a progam of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, wrapped up its three-week judging period on Tuesday with the announcement of the winners of the most important awards. Winning entries are posted on the POYi Web site piecemeal as the judging of each category concludes. While the photos are posted, the photographers’ names are withheld until the judging is finished.

The Los Angeles Times won for best Web site. Ezra Shaw of Getty Images won sports photographer of the year, and Liz O. Baylen of The Los Angeles Times was named multimedia photographer of the year.

The New York Times won for best e-project for “Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek.â€!  The Tim! es also won first place for feature multimedia story for “The Vanishing Mind Series, in Love and Loss.”

Damon Winter, staff photographer of The New York Times, won second place for newspaper photographer of the year. Tomás Munita
 was second in the freelance photographer of the year category, for a portfolio that consisted mainly of his work for The New York Times. And Becky Hanger of The Times won first place, second place and third place for sports story editing.

David Alan Harvey’s “Based on a True Story” received the award for best photography book.

Mr. Hansen also took top prize in the2012 World Press Photo Contest for a dramatic image, of a funeral procession in Gaza. He was previously the POYi newspaper photographer of the year in 2009.

This year’s photography contests have been tinged by scandal. On Sunday night, the White House News Photographers Association announced that it had stripped the Washington Post photographer Tracy Woodward of an award of excellence that he had received in the association’s 2013 Eyes of History photo contest in the sports feature/reaction category because of digital manipulation.

Though POYi has received some criticism for the way it handled Mr. Pellegrin’s entry, Mr. Shaw said he welcomed the conversation.

“It is an important dialogue,” he said. “The question of digital processing in today’s world is an important dialogue. Accuracy ! in the te! xt that accompanies your images is an important dialogue.”

Paul Hansen/Dagens Nyheter Mr. Hansen’s photo of the funeral of Suhaib Hijazi and his brother Muhammad in Gaza was part of a portfolio that won him photographer of the year in the newspaper category.

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