Entitled To Unfair Use – Moon of Alabama

May 31, 2005

Entitled To Unfair Use

Dan Okrent, former public editor of the NYT after getting fire for criticizing NYT columnist Paul Krugman only in his very last piece for the paper:

But I laid off for so long because I also believe that columnists are entitled by their mandate to engage in the unfair use of statistics, the misleading representation of opposing positions, and the conscious withholding of contrary data.

From now on, (if you not already do so,) please read any NYT and WaPo, and WSJ, and LAT, … columnist knowing that their paper’s official public editor approved policy is to allow them the ‘instruments’ of:

unfair use of statistics

misleading representation of opposing positions

conscious withholding of contrary data

Yes, maybe you did know that this was their policy all along. But I am still somehow astonished that an official ‘right to lie’ for MSM columnist is put on record, while the same media corp folks bang bloggers for not being "fair and balanced".

Posted by b on May 31, 2005 at 21:20 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Obviously “Fair and Balanced” means “employed by the same bosses as we are”.

Posted by: kelley b | May 31 2005 21:42 utc | 1

This is just one of those things that won’t fit in my head. Can’t parse it at all. He’s saying it’s ok for columnists to write any old shit? He’s saying that?

Posted by: Colman | May 31 2005 21:52 utc | 2

I suppose “astonishing” if you mean the newspaper of record should choose to hire op/ed columnists who routinely lie and are known by their employers to be liars.
But there’s certainly no law requiring columnists to be truthful, except for libel law prohibiting defamation, and privacy torts.

Posted by: slothrop | May 31 2005 21:57 utc | 3

@Colman -yes, he is saying that – on record – beware.

Posted by: b | May 31 2005 22:13 utc | 4

as long as you stick to the party line……….

Posted by: lenin’s ghost | May 31 2005 22:16 utc | 5

What in the hell is with you people?
OP Ed people can write anything they farking want. It’s been going on for ever. Editorial people can say whatever they want, too.
News people are held to a higher standard, except for certain outlets.
Truth is, I didn’t see Krugman play fast and loose with numbers.
You think George Will, Safire, and our own Molly Ivins are writing fact, for Christ sake?

Posted by: FlashHarry | May 31 2005 23:40 utc | 6

“News people are held to a higher standard…”
Really? Ever heard of Judith Miller?

Posted by: susan | May 31 2005 23:47 utc | 7

The great value of Okrent’s reply, with its embittered and incoherent rhetoric, is that it shows us how deeply partisan the Times actually is, and how deeply it resents having to publish someone from the other side, namely Paul Krugman (has to do so, because its tattered credibility constrains it from firing him). But the other side of what? Not, I suspect, the economy, about which Okrent is manifestly, and unapologetically, incompetent, but about the Middle East and the war in Iraq. Krugman, who doesn’t like the war, has said so from the very beginning. Along the way, he’s irritated folks like Howell Raines, Judith Miller and Thomas Friedman. Raines may be gone, but Miller and Friedman are not., and they probably regard Krugman with the same affection that Miller displayed when Al Franken told her, in a public forum, that “she might find some WMD’s in her jail cell”. A long pause, and then Franken: “I guess I shouldn’t have told that joke”….

Posted by: alabama | Jun 1 2005 0:39 utc | 8

‘ But I laid off for so long because I also believe that columnists are
entitled by their mandate to engage in the unfair use of statistics, the
misleading representation of opposing positions, and the conscious
withholding of contrary data. ‘
I second Susan.
Can it be that belief in such a mandate for columnists is the natural
outcome of the NYtimes implicit belief in such a mandate for its
“reporters” like Judith Miller and for politicians like all of the
principals in the present federal regime, who have been seen to have
engaged in exactly such behavior in order to prosecute their illegal and
immoral war in Iraq?

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 1 2005 1:35 utc | 9

The Next Hurrah has a post on this. Krugman wrote a letter to the editor of the Times disputing Okrent and basically calling him an asshole in so many words.
Judith Miller and Freidman are just sycophants. It sickening how these people suck and run in the same circles as the politicians. Look at the amount of so called journilist that are running in the same circles as the people they cover. Andrea Mitchell is married to Greenspan, Novak, Will, and Matthews all go to the same parties.
The only truth is what you can glean.

Posted by: jdp | Jun 1 2005 1:44 utc | 10

“News people are held to a higher standard…”
Really? Ever heard of Judith Miller?
Yeah, and I’ve heard of Susan Schmidt and Michael Isikoff too.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Jun 1 2005 1:56 utc | 11

One more demonstration of what I call the neocon mirror. They project their own worst faults upon others and feel purged by attacking others for those faults that they themselves have in spades. You pick ANY Bushie quote about BinLaden/AlQueda/rogue states or even about Democrats and ironically you will also have an exact description of his own glaring defective attitude, behavior, and outrageous public policy position.

Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 1 2005 2:10 utc | 12

That said, opinionated columnists are entitled to back up their opinions with any statistics they like, however misleading. And they do!
I think Krugman is head-and-shoulders about the rest of them. The fact that most of his columns repeatedly uncover the deception of the radical right’s misrepresentations must really annoy them, so they project onto him their own disregard for facts.

Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 1 2005 2:21 utc | 13

Opinions are opinions, but bullshit is bullshit, and the idea that one is the other, and both are equally entitled to column inches is bullshit.
Krugman made obvious reality based points that contested white house propgaganda and flat out lies and Okrent would have none of that. Brooks, on the other hand, regularly rationalizes whatever the Republican Apparatus lie of day is. To put Krugman in this low life’s class is intellectually corrupt.
Okrent can’t judge the merits, but, he knows the White House represents the powerful, and power is truth in the world of those who can judge on the merits. It is one more example of how the NYT is a great paper adrift with lousy editors who have no compass other than the one that points to power. That paper may soon reach a tipping point and establish a new identity as a rag that stands for nothing, lest of all journalism. The current crew is to incompetent to know it is happening.

Posted by: razor | Jun 1 2005 3:16 utc | 14

Round 15:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000939004

Posted by: FlashHarry | Jun 1 2005 3:23 utc | 15

Opinion can certainly be bullshit and often is.

Posted by: gylangirl | Jun 1 2005 3:39 utc | 16

Some are of the opinion that faith healing works, and that the end of slavery was a great loss. These bullshit opinions do not belong on any reputable papers op-ed page. Saying anything goes on an opinion page goes to far and gives free license to bullshit. Lest we forget what is at issue:
“The aide said that guys like me[i.e., reporters and commentators] were in what we call the reality-based community.” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while your studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you will be left to just study what we do.”
Ron Suskin, “Without a Doubt,” The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004

Posted by: razor | Jun 1 2005 3:52 utc | 17

“adrift with lousy editors” is well put, razor, but those editors, lousy as they may be, are set further adrift by the dumbest, the most contemptible, manager/owner in the entire newspaper industry of today. And while Pinch Sulzberger may horrify other members of the Sulzberger family, he continues to enjoy the unwavering support of his under-endowed Dad, the equally contemptible and intensely contemned Punch. Good owners make good papers and bad owners make bad ones, the counter-example for the NYTimes being, to my mind, the Knight-Ridder chain.

Posted by: alabama | Jun 1 2005 3:53 utc | 18

@razor
How can you describe NYT as “the NYT is a great paper adrift with lousy editors” ?
The minute that paper supported the crimes of our govt it sloughed off any claim to “great paper”.
No more, if in fact NYT was EVER worthy of that moniker, that recognition by knowlegable folks that it was to be believed in its editorial content. The very fact that they keep publishing the bullshit of Tom Friedman proves that they (the paper) are stooges for a criminal government. He (Freidman) continually and laboriously backs the murderous policies of our prez and his lackeys – ( a few apologies, as if they might be a bit more judicious in the policies of genocide, had he Freidman been consulted)
I am forever shocked – positively shocked – that intelligent observers can give ANY credit to a paper that backs to the best of its ability – a govt intent on genocide.
Can you – anyone – give me a reason to respect this? To read it?

Posted by: rapt | Jun 1 2005 3:58 utc | 19

I mean I understand the need for a standard, a top dog, but this? NYT? Please.

Posted by: rapt | Jun 1 2005 4:00 utc | 20

What I mean about great paper is when there is some real issue and the paper lies out illustrations and charts and graphs and give background that is just absolutely positively amazing. No other paper comes close – or even tries.
Personally I don’t care in of itself that the paper supported the war. What was an unforgiveable sin is described by two well curse words from the Dark Side already invoked here: Judith Miller. Knowingly publishing propaganda of the known worst, most biased, sources, as the gospel truth, because, it is Right to be biased for Israel and against Moslem and for the powerful in Washington. Evil. But, that is all at the top. The worker bees weren’t making those calls.

Posted by: razor | Jun 1 2005 4:06 utc | 21

unfair use of statistics
misleading representation of opposing positions
conscious withholding of contrary data
@Colman: Okrent simply quoted from the Safire Guide to Punditry.
Well I have been wondering since last November how long Krugman will last. Keller, Brooks, Tierney . . . A linear extrapolation is not promising. I suspect this is intended to make Prof. K. officially “controversial”, so as to justify his replacement by a nominal Dem like Susan Estrich or a boosterish economist. Whomever it is will not call Bushco liars, let alone prove it regularly in several short paragraphs. I have to think he will be subject to further internal attacks until he throws in the towel. If that doesn’t work, then they’ll drop him involuntarily. I don’t see how else to understand this ridiculous crap-flinging getting into print.

Posted by: alvin | Jun 1 2005 16:00 utc | 22

Alvin, ZNet sees it the same way.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Jun 1 2005 16:31 utc | 23

I’m with alvin.
They only smear those they fear most.
___
Re: fair use of crap…..
The good thing about lettin’ ’em use it if they want is that eventually you can see all the stains when the wedgie comes.
Clearly, Dr. K’s briefs are still white as the driven snow.

Posted by: RossK | Jun 2 2005 6:19 utc | 24

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