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

[motherissue]

Let us quit being naive. NYT is no diifferent than any and all mainstream media here and in Britain and Europe:

Transnational globalist elites have their people in key positions, the better to advance THEIR agenda, and not OURS

MSM like the Times are very much guilty of complicity in very many of these crimes -- not least those of 9/11. They will lose the infowars, and their people, inasmuch as we know their identities, WILL be held accountable

[realnoia]

I think Kristol has something on the paper
courtesy of the Cheney administration. In other
words he and the RNC blackmailed Kelly.

[1oldlady]

What..are these guys crazy!?

Of course the jerk was a major mistake, but he is just now commenting on the this! Are they a major newspaper who has "good" legal team, who reads past comments of those who may be hired?

I don't buy it! This seems to be more public pressure than anything else! Now try an get out of this contract NYT's...Off to court you go!

[Ladyrantsalot]

William Kristol is a mediocre writer and a mediocre thinker. I disagree with him on virtually everything but, ultimately, I'm irritated by the hire primarily because he is so intellectually second-rate. My Times subscription is extremely expensive, but I'm old-fashioned enough to pay for it as long as I'm getting a broad range of first-rate analysis. With Kristol, all you get is a predictable recitation of stale party talking points delivered with snideness and uninspired prose.

[abbiehoffmansghost]

Did you know the guy's M.O. before you hired him?

[realpolitic]

Mr, Hoyt must be very naive. Kristol has said of the Times when they revealed a government program searching the international banking transactions of Americans in search of terrorists: "I think the Attorney General has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution."

Mr Hoyt said Kristol's statement smacked of intimidation and a disregard for the First Amendment. It was intimidation and Kristol has no respect for the first amendment except to use it to silence administration critics.

Then he says Kristol refused to talk about this statement or an earlier statement that the Times was "irredeemable," or for that matter the reaction to his appointment- "an odd stance for someone who presumably would want others to talk to him for his column."

What makes Mr. Hoyt think Kristol plays by his rules of journalistic fair play? He will not explain his past explosive statements and if people do not speak with him he will probably invent statements.

Kristol plays from an entirely different playbook. His Machiavellian tactic is to persuade the masses by any means necessary whether obfuscation, misinformation, or downright falsehoods. His wars are too important to him to leave his bully pulpit arguments to the truth.

[Fernando]

And you didn't see that coming?! There is a difference between a conservative voice and a neo-con voice, and that difference is huge.

But this should not surprise anyone, and shame on the NYT for being dense enough to hire this rabid, intellectually inconsistent tweet. The man who advocated for Scooter Libby to be pardoned now turns on his employer publicly. How sweet it is!

[larry278]

No shit, Sherlock. What gave you the clue?

[magen]

Starting to feel the effects of the loss of revenue from all the subscription cancellations NYT??????
Good.
Keep making those kind of brilliant decisions, and the Times accelerates its inevitable slide into irrelevance.

[raptor]

The NYT. "All the News That's Fit To Print" has become "All the New and Opinions That Fit, We Print". Depending on the language of his contract, maybe they can just stick him in a little windowless office. Oh, let him write; just don't print it.

[hulka37]

No shit?

[raker]

I read Hoyt's column. He was dishonest in representing the dislike of Kristol as trivial and partisan. Kristol is an evil man. His lies and evildoings are manifest. Safire was just a regular conservative a-hole. Kristol has the blood of thousands on his hands.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Kristol's been a GOP hack, you hire hacks you get hack-like results...now, does that say more about the guy or the party? Neo-scamsters that were all hot n heavy for this war thing have largely scuttled off to their burrows, save a few, Kristol's as good an example as any I could name, save maybe Wolfowizitizthcitzhhitzzz, point is, all their
rhetorical smack-talk and fiscal manipulations
helped set the stage for that disaster, and
judging by the end results, frankly all their intellectual products are in fact, suspect. And, I suspect that as a result, Kristol's not going to have a very high readership, other than perhaps vehement critics. But, that's shooting fish in a barrel. I think a lot of em know they got caught with their hand in the oil barrel, there, whether they exhibit any contrition over the whole affair, well, that remains to be seen, True Believers of various stripe tend to be true to their ideological colors etc...I'm not holding my breath for any measurable amount of time waiting for a conscientious epiphany on Kristol's part or anyone else's...I think I'll spend the time studying ethanol instead. In other news: There's a japanese car club seeing juuust how far they can push those Prius'. Toyota hit one out of the park with that model. GM's working on a Volt. See what you can do with your car company when you get out of the real estate business? It's almost like a miracle, or something...

[raptor]

Duh. Ya think?

[LeftLeaner]

What are these people drinking at NYT?

I'd like to know WHAT they were expecting, if not a horrendous columnist whose history is plagued with atrocious judgement and OF COURSE cronyism.

The calibre of the NYT ain't what it used to be.