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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Missteps by Howell Raines, the New York Times' imperious top editor, have left the nation's best newspaper vulnerable to attacks by the right.
Dec 18, 2002 | A century ago, New Yorkers saw advertisements around town for the New York Times that played up the emerging paper's respectability: "It won't soil the breakfast cloth." Today it's the Times' own dirty laundry that's being scrubbed in public -- and the newspaper's political opponents couldn't be happier.
The mighty daily is struggling to regain its footing in the wake of the paper's most embarrassing newsroom flap since it famously outed the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of rape more than a decade ago. This time, the controversy erupted when two Times sports columnists questioned the newspaper's editorial campaign against the men-only membership policy at the venerable Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia. Both columns were spiked by executive editor Howell Raines.
The decision outraged journalists and media critics. While it's rare for columnists to contradict the editorial policy of their paper, it's almost unheard of at major newspapers to spike a columnist's work for internal political reasons. The fiasco played right into the hands of conservative critics who in recent months launched fresh attacks against the Times for its alleged liberal bias, arguing the left-wing fights of the editorial page were permeating the news sections. The bigger worry, say some media analysts, is that the poor judgment on one story is being used to discredit the Times' critical work on life-and-death issues like the Iraq War, where the paper's coverage has international influence.
"All the news that's fit to spin," brayed Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard.
The Augusta breakdown was not an isolated incident. During the '90s the Times seemed to jump the journalistic tracks with wide-eyed pursuits of Whitewater criminals, Chinese fundraisers and a spying nuclear scientist -- and Raines had a hand in each failed campaign. Recently tapped to head the newsroom, he now has the power to shape the paper any way he wants. Aggressive reporting is the hallmark of great journalism, but it's a fine line between stories that change history and overzealous crusading. The former wins Pulitzers; the latter cost newspapers credibility.
While one newsroom insider bemoans the habitual Times-watching that goes on in the press as a "God-awful burning of calories," others are still anxious to discuss -- anonymously -- the internal ramifications of the recent Augusta flare-up. "It's done incredible damage to the paper," says one Times source. "The real story is internally at the Times, where the ramifications are even greater. There are a couple major talents at the paper being wooed right now and if there were to be a major defection from the paper, it would be a fucking disaster."
"I don't think the New York Times wants to stand for censoring its columnists," says former Times reporter Susan Tifft, a professor of public policy at Duke University and coauthor of "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times." "Are people not going to believe what they read in the New York Times? No. But it's serious and I'm sure Howell Raines would like to rewind the tape on this decision."
The paper's active army of Republican foes have pounced on the controversy in hopes of taking the paper down a notch. "I couldn't prove it quantitatively, but its reputation has been diminished," suggests Rich Lowry, editor of National Review Online and a persistent Times critic from the right. Certainly Times-bashing is not a new phenomenon. It's been a favorite political sport on the left and the right for decades. As a news organization that arguably is the best and most influential in the nation, and perhaps in the world, the paper is bound to get caught in the crossfire.
"You've got to understand the people who are dedicated to a political movement will always be there taking crack shots at the Times. It's important to them," says Arthur Gelb, a former managing editor at the Times who has had a nearly 50-year association with the newspaper. "If they can bully the paper and get the Times to cave in to their point of view, it's a big victory."
The paper's recent troubles come just as it should be savoring an extraordinary season of success. Last spring, on the strength of its inspired work covering the attacks of Sept. 11, the newspaper won an unprecedented seven Pulitzer Prizes. With another war brewing in the Persian Gulf, the Times, which has always championed international reporting, seems uniquely poised the cover the conflict. Adding to its overseas prowess, the paper in October opted to end its 50-50 partnership with the Washington Post in running the International Herald Tribune newspaper. The Times wants that European flagship to itself.
While other major American dailies struggle with eroding circulation, the Times' readership continues to grow. "There is no more profitable paper, cash-wise, than the New York Times," boasted publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., during a recent question-and-answer forum at the University of California at Berkeley.
Media watchers had been impressed with the Times' recent run. "These are not ordinary times for the newspaper," notes Jay Rosen, who chairs New York University's department of journalism. "The Times is at the zenith of its power."
That swagger is embodied in Raines, the paper's hard-charging veteran who took the reins of the Times as executive editor just a week before the Sept. 11 attacks. Still new to the job, he was called on to deal with the most deadly terrorist strike in modern history on his home turf and in a fiercely competitive media environment. By all accounts, he turned in a tour de force.
