Bill Keller Clarifies: Times Editor Monitoring Ideological Media Will Focus On Right And Left
Since yesterday, the blogosphere has been aflame over the news that The New York Times appeared to have assigned an editor to monitor the obsessions of right wing media, in order to avoid being caught off guard by them in the future.
But Times executive editor Bill Keller clarifies in a statement to me that the editor’s new mission isn’t focused only on the right: The new gig will require keeping tabs equally on right and left wing media.
This latest round erupted after Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote yesterday that the Times had been caught flat-footed by the right wing media’s, er, reporting on the ACORN story. Senior Times editor Jill Abramson conceded the paper wasn’t sufficiently tuned into “the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.”
Hoyt reported that The Times “would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies.”
Naturally, this raised questions: Why no similar effort to tune into the left-wing media, which even some conservatives concede has had far more reporting success? Did this mean that The Times would be granting coverage to bogus conservative-media confections in order to maintain the appearance of being sufficiently in tune with the right?
I asked The Times for clarification of the new role, and Keller emailed this through a spokesman:
We haven’t assigned someone to be in charge of “opinion media.” We’ve asked a colleague who happens to be a voracious consumer of online political buzz to help us (meaning me and Jill) informally, stay current with what issues are erupting, right and left. The responsibility for covering the subject still resides with the reporters on those beats, their editors, and ultimately me and Jill.
It’s true that this new position was created in response to mau-mauing from the right. But if this editor really follows this new mission as described here, it seems like the paper could end up more tuned into what alternative media is up to on the right and left — a potentially good development.
The project’s ultimate success, however, will turn on how aggressively the paper vets the newsworthiness and accuracy of both sides’ reporting — and on how steadfast the paper proves in refusing to buckle to pressure to cover ginned-up non-stories and fake controversies. Should be interesting.
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All they need to do is hang out in the discussion threads after Ann Coulter posts her threads on Wednesdays @ HumanEvents. It’s a meeting ground for conspiracy theorists and right wing basket cases.
“if this editor really follows this new mission as described here, it seems like the paper could end up more tuned into what alternative media is up to on both sides — a potentially good development.”
Lots of ifs there –
If they want to save their necks, they won’t just do the same old thing. But I don’t have loads of hope -
Sounds all too simple to me. If Druge leads with it, it’s probably not reliable.
“the right wing media’s, er, reporting on the ACORN story”
The acorn thing is horrible. Any elected official with ties to that organization needs to be removed from office.
To pass it off as nothing is an insult. Corruption is a cancer on our system – and Acorn is a festering tumor.
“and Acorn is a festering tumor.”
The right has been trying to get rid of ACORN from the start. Acorn is not that corrupt given it’s size and all the good it does. It’s not nearly as corrupt as say, Blackwater. Or the GOP when it was still organized and was run by Tom Delay and Karl Rove. That was corruption on a grand scale.
Jack Abramoff, anyone?
Holy Hyperbole Batbat!! Haliburton. Blackwater. Those are real cancers.
“Batman”
ACORN was setup by that little dweeb who made the videos – and half the time I doubt the ACORN people were serious.
That whole thing was a farce.
how many lawsuits and allegations have been brought against the organization? I am not saying it does not have good intentions – but it is the most mis-managed operation ever – and is not deserving of my support.
ANY group that employs people that in their professional capacity are fine with prostituting 13yr old girls does not deserve a dime.
Maybe the Times could disect this Huckabee statement regarding the UN. Isn’t he considered a right wing pundit with a media outlet and a serious contender for the republican nomination?
“It’s time to get a jackhammer and to simply chip off that part of New York City,” said Huckabee, “and let it float into the East River, never to be seen again!” That remark got him a standing ovation, and Huckabee went on to suggest de-funding the U.N. entirely.
But then Huckabee backpedaled from outright destruction of the U.N. to simply moving it to sunny Riyadh.
“Let’s end the diplomatic excesses that these people enjoy,” he said. “Let any country that is willing to spend the money that the United States is hosting–let them have it. Give it to the Saudis and let these diplomats suck the sand out of the Saudi desert for a few summers and see if that’s where they’d like to go, and make their ridiculous speeches.”
I agree with you on Halliburton & Blackwater.. and the others. I do not want my party affiliated with these people – they are horribly corrupt and should be in jail somewhere.
I am sick of people that only see corruption when it is from the other side – Acorn is/was a problem – hello?!
All these people from all over the country.. the lawsuits from all over the country. They are a problem. THey are not ok. Hello?!!?
“Did this mean that The Times would be granting coverage to bogus conservative-media confections in order to maintain the appearance of being sufficiently in tune with the right?”
Do large ursine animals defecate in the forested regions of our country?
tell you what – the right can hound ACORN out of existence. The same people will come back with a new organization and a new name and start right up again. The Right is not going to continue to keep people of color from voting.
So do your worst – it won’t matter. I’ll personally go out and start another ACORN if I have to.
I think Huckabee should be investigated for postulating a terrorist act. Kinda un-Christian thing to say.. isn’t it there Gov?
““It’s time to get a jackhammer and to simply chip off that part of New York City,” said Huckabee, “and let it float into the East River, never to be seen again!” That remark got him a standing ovation, and Huckabee went on to suggest de-funding the U.N. entirely.”
God – there is not one new idea in the entire GOP repertoire. That old chesnut about the UN has been going around ever since there was a UN, but especially since the Red Scare McCarthy days.
Not one new idea. Not one.
So, basically, in 2009, the Grey Lady is finally deigning to assign someone to pay attention to the blogs?
That’s like the president of the Busby Buggy Whip Company deciding in about 1925 that it’s time to assign an employee to keep an eye peeled on developments in that silly automobile contraption business and advise him of any developments of interest to those in the transportation field.
I suggest their first attempt at this deal with the excellent reporting coming from the right wing blogs about Scott Beauchamp.
A related article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/technology/internet/13influence.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=hot%20air%20talking%20points%20memo&st=cse
“Researchers’ data points to an evolving model of news media. While most news flowed from the traditional media to the blogs, the study found that 3.5 percent of story lines originated in the blogs and later made their way to traditional media. For example, when Mr. Obama said that the question of when life begins after conception was “above my pay grade,” the remark was first reported extensively in blogs.
And though the blogosphere as a whole lags behind, a relative handful of blog sites are the quickest to pick up on things that later gain wide attention on the Web, led by Hot Air and Talking Points Memo.”
Well you always tell what the right is worried about and they are obviously worried about Obama’s recent achievements with regard to arresting terrorists and getting tough with Iran:
LIMBAUGH: As has always been the case, ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force, and we have a namby-pamby wimp in the White House leading us in exactly the opposite direction, and he’s being made a fool of.
And yet The Big Fat PillBilly dodged the draft, during the Vietnam war period.
Rush Limbaugh is a namby-pamby wimpish Oxycotinmoron.
Hello!? The corruption, the human toll, the tax dollars via Haliburton and Blackwater – ACORN pales in comparison.
Maybe Bill Keller will follow along with Michelle Malkin the next time she steals someone’s garbage in order to prove their kids don’t need healthcare.
Sure he is, Liam, but he’s a surefire megaphone on all rightwing worries cause he projects them like a mofo.
“Maybe Bill Keller will follow along with Michelle Malkin the next time she steals someone’s garbage in order to prove their kids don’t need healthcare.”
I wish somebody would. There has always been so much viciousness on the right, online particularly, until the elected GOP started using the same vitriolic rhetoric.
It would be grand if someone besides us were paying attention. Where was the NYT during the heyday of LGF, when they celebrated Pancake Day every year on the day Rachel Corrie was run over by a tank?
BJ, Hot Air and TPM have nothing in common. I think you make the point entirely. TPM is a relatively left of center site. Hot Air is just crazy right wing. Two totally different things. I realize you’re just linking to an article, but the comparison is inaccurate.
Wouldn’t it be more cost effective for them to just check their Journolist emails?
@Kris: The researchers are the ones who identify those two sites.
Here’s a little ideological media item for your perusal. Apparently there are some Russians who think we’re ideological Dumb A$$es. And for good reason.
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/
“These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?”
O dude – come on. How in the world can Pravda say that with a supposedly straight face? The whole ******* country is run by a handful of oligarchs who also run the Russian Mafia.
I get the satire in the piece, but the edge of superiority coming from Russia is a bit much to swallow.
I tried to post some ideological media opinion from Pravda that runs counter to what’s going on in America. I’ll give it another shot.
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/
Must have been a server timing issue. Oh well you get two chances at it.
actuator – your first link worked. I read the piece.
You got caught in the time warp, actuator. There’s a time warp in this commenting program. Comments come and go depending on which parallel universe pops up when you reload the page.
Yes Tena there was more than a little “over the top” stuff in that commentary, but the primary point is that we’re moving in the wrong direction under our current leadership and that point is on the mark.
Do you know what “Pravda” translates to in English?. It is absolutely Orwellian. It is a government run media operation, and it has always printed the exact opposite of what it’s name is.
Liam, it doesn’t matter what it translates to, what matters is the content of the commentary. Address that.
“we’re moving in the wrong direction under our current leadership and that point is on the mark.”
Well in the first place – bullshit. In the second place, that ain’t what it said. It was making fun of the US for electing Obama as if it had put us on the path to Marxism and I took it that we are so far from Marxism here, even with universal health coverage, that that was satirically meant.
If not, the Russians can bite me. Who are they to say who is a good leader – look at their leaders. Give me a break.
It matters what “Pravda” means, because I am not going to be lectured to by a media organ that was founded by the State, and is still an organ of the Russian State.
Heeding what Pravda says about the USA, would be like heeding what Bernie Madoff has to say about Financial Investments Integrity.
Russia has shut down all the free private media, so anyone who is going to sing the praises of what Pravda has to say about us, is delusional at best.
Doesn’t change the fact that the political direction being taken is towards increased government control of business and individuals. Government should regulate a level playing field for business in the interest of fair competition. Government owning and or directly controlling the private sector will not generate the productivity that leads to maintaining a generally high stadard of living. That is one thing for which the Russians have a great awareness.
In the spirit of wondering whether the NY Times is aware of and/or suppresses politically inconvenient news, it appears that the famous “hockey stick” data supporting AGW is, ahem, essentially fake …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/27/quote-of-the-week-20-ding-dong-the-stick-is-dead/
“Government owning and or directly controlling the private sector will not generate the productivity that leads to maintaining a generally high stadard of living. That is one thing for which the Russians have a great awareness.”
Where do you keep your awareness, in your underpants? Where do you get the idea that the government here is taking over the private sector?
And regardless of their supposed great awareness, the Russians are doing about as bad a job of regulating their own capitalism as can be imagined.
Jeez. Waving the Russians at us like they are paradigms.
We have really gone through the looking glass when someone who purports to be on the right is using the Russians’ opinion of us as something we should pay attention to.
The conservative movement has devolved into utter chaos.
Tena, I didn’t say the government was taking over, I said it was moving toward increased control. Are you saying that the things being done with banking and the auto industry are not more controlling? If so, at least the awareness I have in my underpants exceeds yours.
I call “cop out” on Liam.
I do have to agree that Government is controlling more and more of our manufacturing businesses. The Chinese Government, that is, since we have outsourced the vast majority of our manufacturing to China, it’s communist government is in full control over most of what we once used to manufacture.
Strange isn’t it, that those private corporations, who have always pretended to be afraid of government interference here in the USA, have had no hesitation about letting the Communist Government of China take full control of their production plants. Hmmmmm. Can you say, hypocrisy, boys and girls?
“. Are you saying that the things being done with banking and the auto industry are not more controlling?”
I can’t help you if you ignore history. Go look back at what FDR did to keep the Depression from getting deeper.
And what those same measures did to protect us from just the kind of crash we had in ‘08 for all those years.
The proposition is not either/or. It’s not laissez-faire capitalism vs. Marxist Socialism. There is a large amount of room in between those two poles. Most things in this universe do not operate well without balance. Capitalism has to be balanced with a dose of Socialism, which needs some Capitalism to survive.
Apparently the Chinese and Russians have figured out that a LARGE dose of capitalism is required or you get left in the dust.
I hope the ghost in the system hasn’t struck again and this doesn’t double post.
Apparently the Chinese and Russians have decided a LARGE does of capitalism is required or you get left in the dust.
Should have known.
sctuator – if you look a bit more closely, the Chinese reign theirs in pretty closely, even environmentally anymore. And the Russians still don’t really have a functioning economic system.