The Public Editor\'s Sunday Column: The Disconnect on Anonymous Sources

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International New York Times.

Don't have an account yet?
Create an account '

Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?
Learn more '

Is The Times Being Stealthy? Or Just Improving Its Reporting in Real Time?

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International New York Times.

Don't have an account yet?
Create an account '

Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?
Learn more '

Times Reporter Plans to Take Fight to the Supreme Court

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International New York Times.

Don't have an account yet?
Create an account '

Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?
Learn more '

Behind the Scenes on Changes to a Story on Pope Francis

Laurie Goodstein covers one of the most scrutinized beats at The Times. As national religion correspondent, her recent articles on Pope Francis have been the topic of plenty of conversation and discussion â€" and have had very heavy readership.

The article I'm writing about now garnered nearly 1,500 reader comments and a long perch on the most e-mailed list.   It reported on the pope's surprising interview with a Jesuit publication in which he said that the Roman Catholic Church was unduly obsessed with subjects like homosexuality, birth control and abortion.  The article went online first on Thursday, Sept. 19, then appeared in print on Friday, Sept. 20.

Ms. Goodstein wrote to me this week, hoping to clarify my discussion in a recent blog post of that article's evolution.  My post took up the frequent changes made to news stories online in the course of a daily news cycle.

“I'm concerned that your column leaves the impression that the piece was intentionally softened or tweaked, perhaps because of some outside pressure, when that was not at all the case,” she wrote.

I was responding to an e-mail from a reader, Kevin Loker, who gave several examples of where language had changed substantially in her story. He wondered whether an editor's note might be in order to describe why those changes â€" which he saw as softening â€" were made. (For example, he noted that words like “in remarkably blunt language” were removed, as were sentences including: “The 12,000-word interview ranges widely, and may confirm what many Catholics already suspected: that the chameleon-like Francis bears little resemblance to those on the church's theological or political right wing.” Another sentence that was in the early version and not in the later version was: “Those who seek a broad revival of the Tridentine Mass have been among Francis's harshest critics, and those remarks are not likely to comfort them.”)

I asked Ms. Goodstein if I could share her note with readers of this blog, because it helps to explain how the online editing process works. She agreed, saying that although her note was meant for me, it might “lift the curtain” for readers about how breaking stories evolve through online changes. She wrote:

The changes in that article were not done, as the reader suggests, to soften the language or the headline. It was entirely because of the timing in the roll-out of that story. Here's how it came down:

I wrote the first version on Wednesday night, because the Jesuit publication slipped me and two or three other reporters an advance copy of the interview with Pope Francis very late Wednesday afternoon. We ran that story as soon as the embargo lifted, at 11 a.m. on Thursday. Because of the heads-up, we had a story far more complete than most of our competitors. But because of the embargo, I could not do any additional reporting or interviews with other sources about the pope's comments â€" because no one else had yet gotten wind of the pope's interview.

The pope's interview caused an immediate sensation, and I spent the day interviewing sources and gathering reaction. So the next version of the story, which was posted on the Web later that day and ran in the next day's paper, reflected that reporting. It was a total “writethru,” merging the news of the pope's interview with the news of its impact.

A “writethru” is not polishing or tweaking a story â€" it is a rewrite to update and reflect new information.

I've written before that when an early version of a story is substantially rewritten â€" when it is really a new story rather than a revised version of the first one â€" a new URL should be assigned by an editor so that both can be archived. That doesn't always happen, and did not here, but it would have been a good idea.

Ms. Goodstein's note also brings up the matter of embargoes on news stories â€" an interesting topic, but one for another day.

The Times Is Working on Ways to Make Numbers-Based Stories Clearer for Readers

Many readers have written to me recently, given the federal budget crisis, to make a simple request: Please advocate for news stories that put large numbers in context. If The Times does not do that, they say, it is part of the problem, and if it does do so, other news organizations are very likely to follow suit.

George Markell of San Francisco is one of these. He wrote:

I agree that The New York Times should report federal spending items as a percentage of the budget, not just in dollars. I'm a retired copy editor, and I think this would be very helpful to your readers.

Of course, not everybody has been quite so restrained about it. A headline in Nation of Change put it this way: “Tea Party and New York Times Shut Down Government.”

I'm all for anything that makes The Times clearer and more useful to its readers. This is a completely reasonable request with obvious benefits to all.

Toward that end, I just finished speaking with David Leonhardt, someone who is well positioned to do something about this. Not only is he the Washington bureau chief, but he also is a Pulitzer Prize-winning economics writer. (Mr. Leonhardt even majored in applied mathematics in college but, as he notes, that didn't keep him from making a rather public math error: “I once confused million and billion on the front page of The New York Times.”)

He agrees that there is a problem, and told me that The Times is already working on a solution. A small group of editors is “thinking through a whole set of issues about how we present numbers,” he told me. The results, he said, will probably be determined within a couple of months. They might take the form of new entries to the stylebook, announcements within newsroom departments or e-mails laying out new guidelines to the whole news staff.

“The readers are right,” he told me. “We should do better.”

Part of the problem, he said, is that “the human mind isn't equipped” to deal with very large numbers. When people see these numbers, he said, they read it as “a lot of money” or “a really big number.”

One answer, as many have suggested, is expressing individual budget figures â€" consistently â€" as a percentage of the whole. Another, he said, is in making comparisons. For example, he said, a $10 billion figure might be put in context by comparing it with other costs, like the annual defense and Social Security budgets.

“It begins to help people understand,” Mr. Leonhardt said.

And while he noted that the recent pressure for change is “coming from the left,” specifically the economist-writer Dean Baker and MoveOn.org â€" which now has more than 18,000 signatures on a petition - this is not a partisan issue.

“Math has neither a conservative nor a liberal bias,” Mr. Leonhardt said.

The Times began grappling with the numbers questions a few months ago, he said, as the time neared for the conversion of The International Herald Tribune to The International New York Times. Many countries report economic data differently than does the United States, and that has to be explained and reconciled, Mr. Leonhardt said.

In the meantime, he said, Washington reporters have already been reminded to add percentages whenever they use large budget numbers, and a new stylebook entry has been written on one of the subtopics, inflation.

It won't be easy to make these changes happen consistently, especially in stories written on deadline. But, from the reader's point of view, the effort will be worthwhile â€" and the sooner, the better.

Was a Question About Women and the ‘Great American Novel\' Sexist?

Maura Casey, a Times reader and a former member of The Times editorial board, was one of the readers who was unhappy with a question posed Sunday in the Book Review's weekly Bookends feature: “Where Is the Great American Novel by a Woman?”

Actually, she was more than unhappy, more like downright angry. She wrote to me about it, saying she found it “specious, condescending, sexist, and to be making an assumption that is utterly uncalled for.” (The assumption is that there is no Great American Novel written by a woman.)

She added:

Can we please pause and remember that the last American who won a Nobel Prize in Literature was Toni Morrison, a member of the Female Persuasion? How about Harper Lee, whose “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been a must-read for 50 years?

Who dreams up such drivel as this question? Is the Book Review an adolescent male treehouse, complete with a sign saying, “No Girls Allowed” complete, of course, with a backward “s”?

Finally, substitute “Where is the Great American Novel by a Black?” and the question is exposed for its flawed and insulting assumption. But somehow it's O.K. for the paper of record and the oldest book review in America to dis half of humanity.

I talked Monday morning about this with Pamela Paul, who this year was appointed the Book Review's second female editor.

Ms. Paul told me that the question was posed because it was provocative, not because the Book Review endorses the idea that no woman has written the Great American Novel.

“It is a question that people ask,” Ms. Paul said. “People seem to think of the great American novel as somehow male, so the question was meant to challenge that.”

She said she does not believe that the same question arises about black authors, or at least she hasn't heard it discussed, but she freely admitted that none of this was based on empirical evidence.

As it happens, both of the authors who take on the “Bookends” question â€" Jennifer Szalai and Mohsin Hamid - challenge the relevancy of the Great America Novel altogether. Many of the readers in the online comments do, too.

And Ms. Szalai noted that John William De Forest, a 19th-century novelist and one of the first to use the phrase, “praised only one book for having ‘a national breadth to the picture, truthful outlining of character, natural speaking and plenty of strong feeling': ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin,' by Harriet Beecher Stowe.”

Mr. Hamid suggested that a glance at one's bookshelves might answer the question with titles by authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Ursula K. Le Guin.

As for the broader question of whether the Book Review is a boys club, Ms. Paul noted that her staff members are actually more female than male at the moment. Since taking over as editor in April, she has made a point of making the Book Review more inclusive and diverse, and is doing so effectively.

“I'm trying to find books and reviewers that are reflective of our readership,” she said. “We have a global audience now, and in general we are trying to be very broad.”

Here's my take: The question has provoked some interesting discussion and two good answers by the writers. But there could still have been a lively discussion - without feeding a faulty assumption - if the question had been phrased differently. Here's my (admittedly inelegant) stab at it: “Who Are the Top Women Contenders for Great American Novelist?”

The Public Editor\'s Sunday Column: As Media Change, Fairness Stays Same

As Media Change, Fairness Stays Same

MOST of the time, Michael Powell writes the Gotham column for the news pages of The Times, in which his liberal politics - that's his own description - may be understood, though not made explicit.

But occasionally, the veteran reporter turns his attention to a larger, investigative article, as with one published this month on the front page. It told of how a case accusing law-enforcement officials of misconduct in a small New Jersey town was quashed, reportedly because of political influence. The main target of the indictment, according to the article, was a political ally of the state's governor, Chris Christie, a nationally prominent Republican running for re-election.

After the article appeared, I received a letter of complaint from Michael Drewniak, the governor's spokesman. His objections are to this specific article, but they raise larger questions that I found worth considering.

Journalism is changing drastically, and the once-prized quality of objectivity is increasingly dismissed by some as outdated and pointless. Journalists like Glenn Greenwald or Laura Poitras, who both worked with Edward J. Snowden in publishing revelations about government surveillance, are proud, rather than apologetic, about their passionate advocacy on matters of civil liberties. So Mr. Drewniak's questions present an opportunity for discussion.

The entire story, writes Mr. Drewniak, “strains to make tenuous connections,” and ignores the valid nonpolitical reasons that the indictment was dismissed. He objected strenuously to Mr. Powell's writing this story not as a column but as a news story. That switch “is questionable and unsettling in terms of his ability or desire to be fair and impartial.” And he faults Times editors for allowing him to do so.

I asked Mr. Powell, as well as the politics editor, Carolyn Ryan, and the managing editor, Dean Baquet, about these complaints, and the larger issues. Mr. Powell told me that he reported the story as thoroughly and fairly as possible, and that he sees no problem in moving occasionally from columnist to reporter; the editors told me that they paid particular attention to the tone and substance of the story because of Mr. Powell's usual role. They say that a reported column, like Gotham, on the news pages is not the same as an opinion column on the Op-Ed page; it is intended to contain not opinion so much as reported analysis, written in a columnist's voice.

Mr. Powell said that with a 28-year history of reporting, he feels confident about producing a solid, fair investigative piece. What's more, he said, “I think that objectivity is a farce - something that makes no intellectual sense whatsoever. Fairness, however, is something that I take very, very, very seriously.”

The important question for journalists to ask themselves, Mr. Powell said, is “Am I intellectually honest enough to confront my own biases?”

In general, The Times has enforced a strict definition of impartiality. Its internal guidelines say that reporters can't be politically active and editors have told me that the less readers know about reporters' political beliefs, the better.

The Associated Press has a similar set of rules, as do many newspapers. The A.P.'s standards editor, Tom Kent, has cautioned against treating impartiality as “easy road kill in the rush to new journalistic techniques.” Some prominent journalists have gone so far as to say that, to preserve neutrality, they don't even vote.

Would Times readers have been better off if Mr. Powell had taken his early reporting on this story and handed it off to a reporter, or reporting team, whose personal politics would not come under fire?

Ms. Ryan says no. She told me that Mr. Powell, with his reportorial skills and deep knowledge of New York and New Jersey, was the right choice, noting that he managed to get several members of a grand jury to speak to him - not an easy feat. She also noted that this is not a first: Mr. Powell and other news-side (as opposed to Op-Ed) columnists have stepped away from their columns to write investigative pieces before.

“There's no question that Michael was the right person to write this story,” she said. Mr. Baquet told me that the story withstood “a very high level of scrutiny” that helped ensure its thoroughness and balance.

Mr. Drewniak's objections do not include any factual errors. He complained, though, of “gross omissions” and “unsubstantiated leaps of faith,” and wrote of fighting an uphill battle, during the reporting process, against Mr. Powell's “preset narrative.” He gave me many examples of columns in which Mr. Powell criticized Mr. Christie, once calling him “congenitally pugilistic,” and, as recently as January, writing that the governor “can be rude and petty and play a mean game of politics.” Asked about this, Mr. Powell and Ms. Ryan noted that the column had also sometimes presented Mr. Christie in a favorable light.

The journalism world is changing. In the broadest terms, transparency (lifting the curtain so that readers see and understand the process and the players) has become more important; traditional objectivity (the idea that reporters should appear to have no beliefs) less so. Within the whirlwind, journalists need to hold on tight to accuracy, intellectual honesty, rigorous reporting and fairness - values that can never go out of style.

Investigative stories, by their nature, will make some people unhappy. Ideally, the reporter's politics and opinions would not provide ammunition for those who complain or criticize afterward.

But in the end, the proof is in the story itself. Is it accurate? Is it fair? Does it dig up something worth knowing that we didn't know before? From all I can tell, Mr. Powell's article meets those crucial standards.

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 appears in print on October 27, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: As Media Change, Fairness Stays Same.

Charges of Racial Profiling in Manhattan Stores Deserve Attention in The Times

Reports about racial profiling at Barneys New York, the upscale store, have appeared in The Detroit News, The Las Vegas Review-Journal, USA Today and other newspapers throughout the nation and world, but not in the pages of The Times â€" despite the store's location in Manhattan.

The story involves high-profile figures like Jay Z, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the actor Robert Brown of the HBO series “Treme.” A second retail outlet, Macy's, has become part of the story.

Readers are wondering why The Times seems to be ignoring the situation, which has been picked up by the major wire services and published around the globe.

Marilyn Abbott wrote:

Other newspapers, including those abroad, have been reporting for several days about racism at New York upscale department stores.

The latest story found in The Daily News concerns the actor, Robert Brown of “Treme,” and how he was arrested at Macy's during the summer while purchasing a $1,000 watch for his mother. For the past several days, I have searched for the name Barneys, looked at the N.Y./Region, but found nothing regarding these stories.Why?

Another reader, Miriam Weiss of Astoria, Queens, summarized the story and noted that it has been covered in news outlets throughout the country, and as far away as Australia. But, she noted, “The Times apparently considers it not fit to print.” She, too, wants to know why.

I asked the Metro editor, Wendell Jamieson, about the lack of coverage, except for two single-sentence references in The Times's daily “New York Today” report.

Mr. Jamieson â€" no stranger to news that plays big in the tabloids - has worked at other New York City papers, including The Daily News, which has given the story a great deal of attention.

In an initial email, he responded as follows: “This is one of those cases where a competitor has made a campaign out of it. I can't figure a way for us to move the story forward. The suits are rather old and we don't know about their veracity.”

I pressed him on these points. Even though it's a competitor's story, don't the readers of The Times deserve to know about it from their newspaper? If The Times is unsure of the veracity of the accusations, I wrote to him, isn't some digging in order here? And finally, I asked, is it really his thinking not to pursue the story at all?

He responded, noting that this is “the eternal question” in New York media.

This town is full of competitors chasing their own stories. Do we follow every one? We'd never get to do our own. In this case, you have an aggressive competitor - an honorable one, where I worked happily for five years - taking a series of lawsuits and turning them into a nonstop campaign. Such campaigns have long been tabloid staples. We've read the stories and haven't seen a way in for us. They have a he said, she said quality at the moment, and I'm not sure how we could get around that. We very well might write about it in the future, but there would have to be a smart way for us to move the story ahead, or a newsbreak - like a resignation or a major change in store policy.

My take: The Times doesn't have to turn this into a campaign or publish daily front-page articles about it. But the subject is a serious one â€" allegations of racial profiling â€" one that The Times has devoted plenty of its own resources to in the coverage of the city's “stop-and-frisk” police practices, which were successfully challenged in court.  And, while The Times can't cover every story, this one is newsworthy.

At the very least, The Times could publish a wire-service story, summarizing the situation. But it's also worthy of a deeper look. If there are concerns about the “he said, she said” aspect of what's been written elsewhere so far, why not get under the surface to report it fully and energetically?

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 28, 2013

An earlier version of this blog post misspelled the Metro editor's surname. It is Jamieson, not Jamiesen.