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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (60891)	12/10/2002 12:08:32 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"best paper"? Does that include the editorial party line? Here's an interesting letter by a reporter on the NY Times' new editorial policies: FROM A REPORTER: The most amazing aspect of the Boyd memo, the historic event that I think you and Slate both understated, is that the Raines Times seems to have finally erased the traditional wall that stands between the editorial page and the newsrom. I'm a reporter at a large Times rival, and worked at three different papers before my current one, and I can say unequivocally that at every one the twain just about never meet. Indeed, reporters usually take a perverse pride in belonging to a separate operation from editorial. Most believe themselves much more objective than the editorial page, no matter what its stance (and despite the fact that most editorial pages are notably lackluster). Most feel it an advantage with sources to disassociate themselves from the page. Most have to regularly explain to people they meet that their editorial page is separate. (My paper has a vey conservative line that often comes under attack, for instance, so I find myself doing that a lot at parties.) Separating the two, in other words, has always been one of those ethical givens in the newsroom, so obvious and accepted that no one even notices it. Now, maybe there's a good argument for doing away with that distinction and embracing advocacy, like the papers in Britain. I often think that would be more honest. In many ways there's a degree of artificial prissiness in newspapers when it comes to the distincton between news and editorial, a ridiculous belief that reporters are "objective" where editorial writers are not. But what's comical and disheartening about the Boyd memo is that the Times is nakedly embracing advocacy while claiming that in fact it is even more high-minded and objective than anyone can possibly realize. And yet while proclaiming objectivity the Times is now apparently dictating to its columnists, anyway, the proper way to feel about contemporary issues. The line hasn't just been erased, but the editorial page has won! This unsettlingly contradictory -- even Clintonian -- approach, this cloaking of low or at least partisan motives with soaring rhetoric and high-minded declarations, is of a piece with the maddening liberal self-righteousness that gets under mine and so many other people's skins -- even when we are sympathetic to the liberal stance on an issue -- the attitude that they aren't taking a positon but simply going where logic and compassion would lead anyone who's reasonable and smart if only they were equally humane and interested in things like fairness and compassion. If only the rest of us cared more, dammit, we'd see that there is no right or left on the issue of Augusta -- just right, or rights, the rights of the oppressed, that is. The Times could defuse all the controversies of recent months if it just admitted that it's taking a more partisan stance because it think it's appropriate. Indeed, declaring a bias would clearly be for the benefit of readers, the constituents we so love to embrace when it serves us, since it would clue them in to the paper's views and make it easier for them to make informed choices based on what they read in their Times. More than that, such a declaration would be of a piece with the bold stances that the Times' editorial page is constantly hectoring timid politicians to take against Bush (though, to be fair, they have little problem with conservatives being timid). But the paper apparently prefers a duplicitous condescension that pretends objectivity while dictating a party line, a phony Krugmanesque attitude that sober reporting, careful thought and measured consideration have just ineluctably led them to the reluctant conclusion that Republicans -- or in this case, horrible white male golfers -- are evil liars seeking to destroy America and world peace. The newspaper that more than any other influences coverage in every other paper, whose copy is often picked up and run in local papers around the country, has a special trust and responsibility by virtue of its authority. Just as it loves to lecture President Bush that he is president of all the people, not a gang of partisan thugs, so the Times is, in a sense, the paper for all of us. But it refuses to cede any inch of its wide influence over journalism by admitting what it's doing. It prefers simply to abuse that trust by sneaking in a party line camouflagd as objectivity. What a sad day for journalism. Raines and Boyd should be ashamed. But while they seem to specialize in righteous indignation, they have showed no evidence at all, in their public appearances or leaked internal memos, that they are capable of feeling shame. andrewsullivan.com