Standards at the Times

Exploring what the New York Times considers to be its journalistic standards is an interesting exercise. It has kept the Times’ Public Editor Byron extra busy lately.

Byron Calame has written another column confronting yet another public embarrassment over that paper’s handling of the news. It begins with an account of blatant conflicts of interest with freelance writers who work for the Times.

THE ability of The New York Times to maintain its ethical standards among its far-flung outside contributors continues to be a major concern of mine. As these freelancers fill column after column at a lower cost than full-time reporters, readers have a right to expect that editors ensure the integrity of that journalism.

But embarrassing gaps continue to beset The Times’s online ethics questionnaire, introduced last April to ascertain whether freelancers meet the paper’s fundamental ethical standards before they get assignments.

Online ethics questionnaire? Has the Times defined down its standards to something that basic? Apparently. 

Recently, articles by two freelancers suffered from clear conflicts of interest, first spotted by readers who wrote to me.

Why weren’t they first spotted by an editor or two at the Times?

If Times editors had been aware of the conflicts, both editors’ notes concluded, the two freelancers would not have been given the assignments. But why, I began to ask senior editors after the second note appeared, had the new online ethics questionnaire failed to detect these conflicts?

Could it maybe have to do with how little one should rely on an online questionnaire to determine if someone has the integrity a New York Times reporter should have? Do the editors give any face time to reporters before assigning a story to them? 

As I continued to pursue these questions, the problem was acknowledged in a Jan. 16 memo to the staff from Craig R. Whitney and William E. Schmidt, both assistant managing editors. “Recently, we’ve seen several cases of freelancers’ apparent unfamiliarity with provisions of the Ethical Journalism policy … despite the vetting system we put in place last spring to try to ensure that they would be aware of the policy,” they wrote.

In a push in the right direction, the memo requires editors to ask freelancers if they are “familiar with our ethics rules” the next time each is given an assignment — and to “make it clear that continuing to contribute to The Times depends on observing those rules.” If a freelancer “deliberately disregards” the paper’s Ethical Journalism guidelines, “we stop giving assignments to that person,” the two editors warned.

This doesn’t even sound believable. It sounds like a parody some Times detractor would write as a spoof.

So how did the freelancer conflicts on these stories escape detection before publication?

Well, it’s a matter of…timing. And…forgetting to ‘update the ethics questionnaire so editors would be aware of the conflict of interest and not assign the reporter the story.’

What?

While the reader was drifting through the haze of this explanation, the column was winding its way to the big blunder.

The sub-head was titled ‘Drawing a Line.’ So there is one? Where would the Times editors find that line at which point enough is enough?

Iraq.

Times editors have carefully made clear their disapproval of the expression of a personal opinion about Iraq on national television by the paper’s chief military correspondent, Michael Gordon.

The rumored military buildup in Iraq was a hot topic on the Jan. 8 “Charlie Rose” show, and the host asked Mr. Gordon if he believed “victory is within our grasp.” The transcript of Mr. Gordon’s response, which he stressed was “purely personal,” includes these comments:

“So I think, you know, as a purely personal view, I think it’s worth it [sic] one last effort for sure to try to get this right, because my personal view is we’ve never really tried to win. We’ve simply been managing our way to defeat. And I think that if it’s done right, I think that there is the chance to accomplish something.”

This was way over the line for the Times, especially from a respected, veteran reporter like Gordon. Even Times’ readers were upset, which is no surprise.

I raised reader concerns about Mr. Gordon’s voicing of personal opinions with top editors, and received a response from Philip Taubman, the Washington bureau chief. After noting that Mr. Gordon has “long been mindful and respectful of the line between analysis and opinion in his television appearances,” Mr. Taubman went on to draw the line in this case.

“I would agree with you that he stepped over the line on the ‘Charlie Rose’ show. I have discussed the appearances with Michael and I am satisfied that the comments on the Rose show were an aberration.

An aberration? Like there’s usually a clear separation between analysis and opinion in other Times reporting? So, Gordon’s statements left open even the possibility that a new strategy in Iraq may accomplish something, and that’s over-the-top subjective?

They were a poorly worded shorthand for some analytical points about the military and political situation in Baghdad that Michael has made in the newspaper in a more nuanced and unopinionated way. He agrees his comments on the show went too far.”

So Gordon has been duly chastened. And the only thing the Times regrets, it seems, is his critical thinking.