"All the...That's Fit to Print"

The Gray Lady, in the opinion of its Public Editor, no longer separates news and views:

[...]

Last April, I wrote about what I thought was the blurring of the line between news and opinion in The Times. Keller [the executive editor] told me then that the mandate of news columnists “is fundamentally analytical.” He said they may have a point of view based on a body of reporting but “they don’t prescribe outcomes.”

It seems to me that, while The Times has covered the financial and economic crises with great distinction, explaining events with depth and clarity, editors have also let that line between news and opinion slip. Sorkin’s column crossed the line and became prescriptive, as Keller said, but I think Nocera’s did too. And if it isn’t all right to have a reporter write a column about a news article he or she is covering on the same day, why is it all right three days later?

Times editors acknowledge that there is a risk to the paper’s credibility if they don’t manage the mix of news and opinion properly, but they say the payoff from having the expert comments of their journalists is worth the risk. It is true that no reader has complained to me about bias on the business pages, but the single biggest complaint I get is that The Times is, in the broadest sense, a biased newspaper. As business issues, public policy and politics merge in the current crisis, I think the risk only increases as reporters and news columnists slide from analysis to outright opinion.

The editors said they would be refining the guidelines for columnists. In my perfect world, I would draw them conservatively, pulling back from first-person opinion. I would not have reporters writing opinion about the subjects they cover. But that battle appears lost to two stronger influences: the Internet, which puts a premium on opinion and voice, and economics, which keeps the business staff from having columnists who don’t also carry reporting duty.

“We don’t have the resources to do that,” Ingrassia [the business editor] said [emphasis added].

The Times Canadian wannabe, the Globe and Mail, is up to the same tricks.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at December 1, 2008 08:04 AM