NYT Public Editor: Hiring Kristol "A Mistake"

When we broke the news that Bill Kristol would be joining the editorial pages of the New York TImes as a regular contributor, we called it "a move bound to create controversy." After a mistake-laden first effort, now the New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt has delivered his verdict: "[NYT Publisher] Sulzberger and [editorial page editor] Rosenthal made a mistake." Hoyt's reasoning:

On Fox News Sunday on June 25, 2006, Kristol said, "I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution" of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists.

Publication of the article was controversial -- my predecessor as public editor first supported it and then changed his mind -- but Kristol's leap to prosecution smacked of intimidation and disregard for both the First Amendment and the role of a free press in monitoring a government that has a long history of throwing the cloak of national security and classification over its activities. This is not a person I would have rewarded with a regular spot in front of arguably the most elite audience in the nation.

Read Hoyt's entire argument here.

Comments

[MelvinZHoppe]

there has been a somewhat liberal voice in the NYTimes with Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman. However, the NY Times has never been fond of progressive voices and has basically blacklisted and ignored dissent and the Left Wing since I can remember. This is an establishment newspaper, and a private enterprise. Personally I can't stand the chicken hawks like Kristol. So quick to call for war and every last one of em seem like cowards to me. I have had the NY Times delivered for the past 15 years but now I am considering dropping the paper because of this episode.

[BlogAngel]

Thanks to Fox, we bought into a fundamental error. "Fair & Balanced" - one columnist on the left & another on the right duking it out - isn't journalism and it isn't valuable. There are core values in any society and all opinions don't meet those values. A newspaper's supposed to uncover the TRUTH and the 1st Amendment is 1st because it's the most important value of a democracy and it's the way we protect our right to know the truth. If we really want that, we have to support and protect news media when they do a great job of investigating, like the NYT did. But the NYT ignored their values when they hired Kristol hoping his outrageousness would grab reader attention. Unfortunately, they're getting what they paid for. He'll hurt their credibility, just like Judith Miller did.

[Stevelagain]

A blog like this seems to be mostly about hate mongering and smearing. Utter stupidity is held up as intelligence. Baseless and hateful propaganda is repeated daily as facts all need to bow down and pay homage to. Mean conspiracy theories are manufactured instantly to replace any semblance of fact or reality.

It doesn't seem that much good can come from this, it was such hate and smearing that brought down Joe Lieberman in Connecticut and forced him to leave the party.

But I don't see that as a good thing, when good and honorable men who have served their nation long and well are run from the party and replaced by the hateful and dishonest panderers to the far left. Not good for our nation, our economy, or government.

It's such a vile thing to bath in this language and to deal with such bile....and yet there are those who see this as a tool to bring about the change they desire. Change which takes such vile behavior to create is not worthy of us or our nation.

The addicted little flaming board trolls fulfill their duty of putting forth daily mounds of hate and range. To be targeted at whoever the board managers want to take down or punish that day from any party or walk of life.

The internet holds much promise...but this is not it. This is the dark side of the internet. The unwanted slimy side of humanity pretending to be enlightened and leading the way while reinventing history and smearing for the joy of smearing.

It's foolishness, it's vanity, it's inconsiderate and viscous behavior by little-minded people who desire to feed daily on manufactured hate and outrage. It's a corrupt gathering whose accomplishments are nearly always destructive and negative.Such is the "wisdom" and "caring" of the progressive left.

[insanityfollows]

Ya think? I'm all for free speech, but people like Kristol put out vitriolic bile with pure malice for all that don't agree with him. Actually, I'm all for free speech so people can read his drivel and form an opinion like I do, but supposedly the press does have standards, and I would have thought the NYT's were higher. Those standards are why hate groups have to print their own garbage, because publishers have standards. It isn't that NYT is publishing Kristol, it is that they lowered their standards to even consider it in the first place.

[workinguy]

I had to stop buying Newsweek and now the NYT. Atleast now I can afford more gas.

What is this mainstreaming of zealots, propagandists, and shills? Kristol is nothing more then a neo-nut shill masquerading as a serious journalist. If the new robber barrons, created by the neo-nuts, had not funded Weekly Standard he would be writing Bat-Boy articles for the Star, Globe, or NE.

That is the mainstreaming Kristol deserves; face time in the grocery store check-out line and not the editorial page of the NYT.

[doneflyin]

Ok, so fire the little fucker.

Tryin' a little spin there Clarkster?

Sorry, don't believe ya.

Still won't buy your damn paper.

[1oldlady]

You know, if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, well it is a duck!

I guess if any thing the paper and "pi-face" got the coverage they wanted and needed!

And we are to blame for even talking about this, the solution...STOP buying the Paper/cancel your subscription...

[BobC46]

Bill Rristol is a great addition to the editorial staff since the rest of them are on the extreme left. Krugman is the biggest joke, a worthless idiot.

[whathehell]

I don't think the media or politicians understand that the neo-conservative traitors that brought war to America are the most reviled people in this country. They perpetuated the big lie, exploited the gullibility and outright ignorance of Americans with respect to foreign policy. They are a cancer in American society, and we fucking hate them! Adios NYT, Time, WP, etc.

[jbcowan]

YA THINK ?

Just today, Kristol had an article proclaiming that the Petracus "surge" was a GREAT success and that any and all credit belonged to George W. Bush.

It gets better.

The EDITORIAL, however, proclaimed the war a catastrophe and that DESPITE the limited success of the "surge", 2007 was the "deadliest" year for Iraqis since the war began.

So essentially, the Editorial staff of the NYT was countering the views of its newest colleague.

Bad Hire ? Duh !

[dax49]

since i have cut all ties with the nyt (subscription, e-mail, etc.) because of their hiring of rouge boy kristol, what ever they have to say means nothing to me.

[sammy333]

Why is it a mistake? It just means that Sulzberger, Rosenthal and Kristol push the same agenda or want to increase the relative representation of certain ideas. If it does not affect the sales, who cares..

[carol]

" I won't being buying anymore papers and I've read The Time for decades.I don't think that I will be the only one."

Doneflyin echoes my take on Kristol. I stopped buying NYT last week. I can deal with an intellectual conservative like, say, George Will, but not with a neo-conservative hawking (no pun intended) a dangerous political agenda. That the Times editors hired a neo-conservative at a time when 80% of Americans think the country is one the wrong track (mostly because of neo-conservatism) makes a lot of sense. They don't get it and, on a personal level, they let me down. They won't miss my piddling ten bucks a week but, as Doneflyin illustrates, I may not be alone.

[tbone99]

So basically the NYT is saying they were blackmailed into hiring Kristol?

[AZM]

Does anyone ever read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, etc.? How many people realize, or appreciate, the reverence which our founding fathers held for personal freedoms? One can only wish that there were a Thomas Paine to sound the alarm!