Did the New York Times just discover the Internet? The answer is obviously no -- even a cursory glance at their excellent website is proof they are head and shoulders above all other mainstream publications when it comes to an online presence. But still. It's hard to read Clark Hoyt's fisking of last month's Zachary Kouwe's plagiarism debacle (of “pretty banal stuff”) and not be struck by the utter lack of understanding Internet media culture. Namely, linking! It is not brain surgery. (more...)

The New York Times has published their other Gov. David Paterson 'bombshell' article today. It would be interesting to understand the NYT's thinking on all this. Many people assumed that Wednesday's splashy A-1 story on Paterson's shady aide David W. Johnson was the bombshell -- and rightly so considering the placement and the content. Meanwhile today's multi-bylined, multi-page bonanza is still A-1, but has been pushed down a bit and sans the impossible to miss picture. Was that the original plan? Or did all the national attention on Paterson split the story in two and make it double A-1 worthy in the eyes of the editors? Maybe Clark Hoyt will weigh in this weekend. Regardless the fact of the matter is that if the existence of the stories hadn't been scooped by all forms of new media a few weeks ago, they certainly would have been considered bombshell-esque by many. Just the mere fact the Times has run two huge, not flattering, A-1 stories on Paterson in and of itself is newsworthy and probably does not bode well for Paterson's political future. (more...)

It looks like the long-rumored, much-chattered about New York Times 'bombshell' story about Gov. David Paterson -- one that even had the Gov. doing the media rounds in defense of what may or may not being coming -- may end not with a bang but a whimper. (more...)

The entirety of Clark Hoyt's Public Editor column in Sunday's New York Times is devoted to the controversy surrounding Ethan Bronner, the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief, whose son recently enlisted in the Israeli military. After much deliberating, Hoyt decided that although Bronner "has done nothing wrong," he should be reassigned due to the appearance of bias; executive editor Bill Keller responded gracefully, but wrote "we will not be taking your advice." It's a tough call all around. (more...)

That's the question poised in Clark Hoyt's public editor column in the New York Times this Sunday, as Game Change tops the paper's nonfiction best-sellers list. The "racy" stories of "dysfunctional" relationships are captivating, but led Hoyt to a question of journalistic ethics: "How do you deal with a talker of a book reported in a way that the paper’s own standards do not permit?" (more...)

Last week, we told you about Harvard Business School professor and New York Times freelancer Prof. Mary Tripsas, who watchdog blog NYTPicker busted in an ethical pickle. Tripsas praised a company in her column which had just recently paid for her trip and accommodations to their headquarters, directly in violation of Times rules. This Sunday, public editor Clark Hoyt took on the issue (again): "Tripsas violated a policy against accepting travel or anything else of value from the subjects of coverage," he writes. "She will no longer be writing for The Times." (more...)

Lately, the New York Times has had a small bit of trouble getting its contributing writers to follow the rules. Freelancer Suzy Buckley was caught plugging her boyfriend's restaurant in a travel column just weeks after shopping columnist Mike Albo was fired for attending a "press junket," in which travel and accommodations were paid for. (Albo didn't even write about his trip.) These, along with a few other questionable situations, resulted in a stern column from public editor Clark Hoyt about the Times rulebook and a plan to "tighten enforcement." (more...)

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt was not messing around this weekend, as he used his Sunday column to highlight and explain in detail the ethical shortcomings of two recent Times articles. Doing his job with gusto, Hoyt took to task Charles DeLaFuente, a copy editor who used a column space to complain about his own JetBlue airline mishap, and Suzy Buckley, the freelance travel writer caught plugging her long-term boyfriend's Miami restaurant. That may look like a friendly face, over there to the left, but public editors mean business. (more...)

Has the time finally come? Ever since the economy became real reality in the media world -- sometime in October of 2008 -- there has been plenty of inside chatter and speculation about how the New York Times was going to pay for itself. While other papers made huge cuts, and magazines folded, the NYT, for all its own speculation and 'Talk to the Newsroom' pronouncements (paid content etc.) has remained comparably unscathed (though some of its readers, ahem, are still smarting from its decision to cut the City Section). (more...)

After a year or so of non-stop talk about the death of print and the possible ramifications thereof, we may finally be seeing some real-world results of what happens when newspapers (i.e. newsrooms) do not have the budget to perform some basic functions. (more...)

A short glimpse at how the New York Times lives now:

The Times has already made the easier decisions — reducing the support staff, cutting freelance budgets, capping expense-account meals, seeking bargain airfares and hotels, rotating foreign correspondents every five years instead of four, and housing some bureaus in correspondents’ homes rather than downtown offices. The nice car and driver for the London bureau chief? History.

Clark Hoyt, the New York Times ombudsman thinks the paper should stop running scared from Glenn Beck. Hoyt took the Times to task this weekend over their coverage (or lack thereof) of the ACORN and the Van Jones debacle, both incidents which arguably developed into national stories due to their flames being relentlessly fanned by "the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs." A world, says Hoyt, that the Times has trouble dealing with. (more...)

In her column today, Maureen Dowd writes about cowardly Internet bullies — all those bloggers out there who say the meanest stuff, and are seldom called to task for it. "On the Internet," she writes, "it’s often less about being constructive and more about being cowardly." Granted, Dowd puts her name on everything she writes. But the whole 'cowardly not constructive thing' -- not so much. • Just last weekend MauDo went after Anna Wintour. Alright, maybe she was more interested in celebrating the "sacred monster," but some of her jabs cut pretty deep: "Behind those bangs and dark glasses, is Anna human? Or did she tie Hermès scarves together and make a daring escape from District 9 in a getaway car driven by Oscar de la Renta?" Ouch. • Dowd is a big fan of pet names (usually objectionable ones). Hence headlines like "Will Hillzilla Crush Obambi?" • John Edwards got his share of smack from Dowd after his $400 haircut in a column called "Running with Scissors." We haven’t reached the point," she writes, "where we can handle a green-tea-soy-latte-drinking, self-tanning-sea-salt-mango-body-wrapping, Norah-Jones-listening, yoga-toning chief executive." • NYT public editor Clark Hoyt included Dowd's attacks on politicians in a column called "Pantsuits and the Presidency," responding to readers' complaints about the Times' slanted political coverage. A thick slice of those comments revolved around mean Maureen Dowd was:

But Dowd’s columns about Clinton’s campaign were so loaded with language painting her as a 50-foot woman with a suffocating embrace, a conniving film noir dame and a victim dependent on her husband ... She often refers to Barack Obama as “Obambi” and has said he has a “feminine” management style. But the relentless nature of her gender-laden assault on Clinton — in 28 of 44 columns since Jan. 1 — left many readers with the strong feeling that an impermissible line had been crossed, even though, as Dowd noted, she is a columnist who is paid not to be objective.

According to prim and brazen New York Times Stlye columnist Guy Trebay, this summer's look is pretty much the same as last summer's, except for one addition: This summer, the people have spoken and pot bellies are in. "Too pronounced to be blamed on the slouchy cut of a T-shirt, too modest in size to be termed a proper beer gut," Trebay has named this summer's crop of trendy bellies 'Ralph Kramdens.' (I'm still holding my breath for an "On The Street," by the way.) (more...)

This disclosure was one of many that Keller made in a Q&A he did with L.A. Times' Jim Rainey, the full transcript of which was passed on to Joe Strupp at E&P. (more...)

Alessandra Stanley just can't catch a break. First Katie Couric hung her out to dry last week on the Evening News for her error riddled Walter Cronkite piece, which ran on the homepage of the NYT.com hours after his death. And now, two weeks after the fact, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt is having a go at her -- and her editors -- and he's not mincing words. (more...)

We are late to this but it's worth a mention, mostly because it's hard not to conclude there are two editorial standards at the New York Times: one for Maureen Dowd and one for everyone else. (more...)