NYT: NY Times Panel Proposes Steps to Build Credibility

[DeepModem Mom]

Times Panel Proposes Steps to Build Credibility
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: May 9, 2005


In order to build readers' confidence, an internal committee at The New York Times has recommended taking a variety of steps, including having senior editors write more regularly about the workings of the paper, tracking errors in a systematic way and responding more assertively to the paper's critics.

The committee also recommended that the paper "increase our coverage of religion in America" and "cover the country in a fuller way," with more reporting from rural areas and of a broader array of cultural and lifestyle issues. The 16-page report is to be made available today on the Times company's Web site, www.nytco.com.

The committee, which was charged last fall by Bill Keller, the executive editor, with examining how the paper could increase readers' trust, said there was "an immense amount that we can do to improve our journalism."

As examples, the report cited limiting anonymous sources, reducing factual errors and making a clearer distinction between news and opinion. It also said The Times should make the paper's operations and decisions more transparent to readers through methods like making transcripts of interviews available on its Web site.

The report also said The Times should make it easier for readers to send e-mail to reporters and editors. "The Times makes it harder than any other major American newspaper for readers to reach a responsible human being," the report said....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/business/media/09paper.html?hp&ex=1115611200&en=3b02fc95c5e973d6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[kodi]

1. "increase our coverage of religion in America" ?????

from where has this come?

[DulceDecorum]

12. This is the church ....

http://us.news3.yimg.com/beta.news.yahoo.com/util/anysize/345,http%3A%2F%2Fus.news2.yimg.com%2Fus.yimg.com%2Fp%2Fafp%2F20050419%2Fcapt.sge.iiq63.190405221956.photo00.photo.default-266x380.jpg?v=1

[lolly]

32. Guess it worked so well for Newsweek

Damn if they don't have Jeebus or Heaven or Hell on every 3rd issue these days. Once it was a cover story on how our brains are "hard-wired" for religion.

Why the hell my husband keeps renewing that load of crap, I don't know.

[AndyTiedye]

2. How About Reporting the News!

The NYT used to do that, years ago. Now they mostly shill for the ** regime
like every other big media company in the US.

[faithnotgreed]

8. exactly so! at least they have frank rich and paul krugman.

better than other papers can say (but clearly that just points out how loooow our expectations are of more than one or two people reporting truth)

[radfringe]

20. try reporting news not spews

...or just stop taking dictation...

investigation journalism mean investigating not copy/paste

[AuntiBush]

37. I second that! Report the NEWS.

[LiviaOlivia]

3. Dear NYT, For starters

fire Judith Miller, David Brooks and Thomas Friedman then publicly apologize for having hired them in the first place.

Second round to follow.

[gratuitous]

10. Don't forget Elisabeth Bumiller

And her weekly valentine to George W. Bush and her swooning over his manly manliness.

[Julius Civitatus]

29. Is that Elisabeth "Is God On Our Side" Bumiller?

She is the author of some of the dumbest questions ever asked in a Democratic primary, including:

"Really quick, is God on America's side?

and

"Are you a liberal?"

:argh:

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Building credibility via public relations campaign. It's the American

way.

[Tuesday_Morning]

5. What about when nyt shelved...

the bulge story because it was too close to the election?

[KoKo]

6. Notice no mention of backlash on coverage of events leading up to Iraq

Invasion where Judith Miller stovepiped info from Ahmed Chalabi and others which led the paper to have to apologize for weak coverage of the full events leading up to the Invasion.

NYT's and WaPo have much to answer for. I wonder if this should be taken seriously or as an "intent" which will never be realized. :shrug:

[DulceDecorum]

7. Dubya sez

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."
-- Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
-- Gridiron Club, March 2001

[DBoon]

9. Why does the NYT have to grovel to restore its "credibility"

When an administration that has lied openly and repeatedly manages to be unscathed?

Does Fox News have to "restore their credibility"?

Do any of the right wing hate-fests on AM radio worry about their credibility?

Is the NYT trying to "restore their credibility" or are they just figuring out how to become a better right wing mouthpiece?

[lolly]

33. Question asked and answered.

I think this is along the lines of CNN groveling to the RNC, asking "How can we better serve you, master?"

BTW, I notice they're intent on covering more of "Bobo's World,"--you know, the rural areas that Bobo never actually visits, and would hate if he actually did--but LA doesn't exist as far as they're concerned. California? What's that? Let's run a "fun" story every 3-4 years about how California used to be paradise and is now going to hell. Like Bobo's World, we'll never actually visit it, or will stay only long enough to see a few of the restaurants (and pronounce them as poor imitations of NY restaurants), but that doesn't matter, because it's just the same article over and over again anyway.

[acmavm]

11. That ship has sailed. Actually that ship left port a few years back. And

it ain't coming back anytime soon obviously.

[CoffeeCat]

13. The only way a newspaper has credibility...

...is by reporting the truth.

Unfortunately, we don't have a newspaper in this country that seems to be interested in reporting the truth.

We have corporations that own newspapers. And the heads of these corporations care too much about what everyone thinks.

Journalism is dead in the corporate media--for the most part.

[AuntiBush]

38. They're definition of reporting is Reuters/AP News

Now, real journalists have to get up off their a$$es and research with heavy documentation; sources; on the scene flying all over the globe.

Then, they tell the truth. Obviously, they're investments mean more then their current readers - a.k.a. "you're fellow Americans whom deserve the truth, NYT!"

[AP]

14. "Lifestyle" reporting? Religion? KQ Sellye?

[AP]

15. Check your local library for this book:

The record of the paper : how the New York Times misreports US foreign policy / Howard Friel and Richard Falk

http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0421/2004017357.html

Without facts or law : the US invades Iraq -- The liberal hawks on Iraq : a pretense of sophistication -- Editorial policy and Iraq : a Fortune-500 company positions its product -- A crime against peace : Iraq and the Nuremberg precedent -- The torture overture : human rights, Harvard, and Iraq -- Interventionism and due diligence : overthrowing Venezuela's president -- A dodgy dissent : Nicaragua v. United States at the world court -- The Vietnam syndrome : from the Gulf of Tonkin to Iraq

[0007]

16. Just do it!! Don't talk about it - n/t

[yorkiemommie1]

17. i ain't buying it.

n/t

[Pithy Cherub]

18. The NYT wants credibility - is their's on life support?

Only because didn't NYT have an exercise of public handwringing after Jayson Blair, oh yeah there was an omsbudsman. What about the travesty that is Judith Miller, oh yeah, NYT apologizes in general but not specific. Did NYT have critical coverage of the lead up to the war, oh yeah, apologize and use the Avis model - we'll try harder. That speaks to the NYT internal organization not speaking up and holding each other accountable. So we classically go to the people who created the credibility deflation and the NYT will now add to their coverage by discussing religion, going out into the wilderness that is America and thank the electronic wizards they will have email for the public peons to send messages.

Maybe there is no reason to be skeptical, at all... :rofl:

[depakid]

19. Maybe if they'd just stop lying

and fire the reporters who skew their copy and the columnists who write dishonestly, the problem might solve itself. :think:

[teryang]

21. Whining from the Times

They can't accept the consequences from their own abdication of their constitutional role in our society.

The odd thing about this is that they have a very skeptical home audience. I think the patient is terminally ill. They went along with the 2000 coup and then the 911 treason and the war. Now they wonder why they have no credibility. They are little more than panderers of propaganda.

[JerseygirlCT]

22. It's just not that complicated: report the news, and do it honestly

why is that now so hard?

I don't want to read more about their process or their editors or any of that bunk. I want to read about all the things happening in the country and the world that the administration doesn't want reported. Apparently that's too much to ask.

[rocktivity]

23. Just tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

And start giving fair and balanced coverage of the the White House. Also, your biggest credibility problems are named Miller, Bulmiller, and Friedman. Get rid of them.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. Yeah, and when you're covering Democratic primary candidates cover them

all equally without snide remarks and without declaring winners and losers before a single primary vote has been cast.

[Tansy_Gold]

25. Maybe they could start with that headline ----

Readers might "trust" the NYT more if the paper were at least honest about what they're doing --

They wrote: "Times Panel Proposes Steps to Build Credibility"

but what they really MEAN is:
"Times Panel Proposes Steps to Increase Circulation"

lying little shits

[Zerex71]

26. They don't have to pander to Middle America.

What they really need to do is stop being the polite cheerleader for Bu$hCo, and start more investigative journalism again. Of course, their corporate shareholders will never allow that to happen. As far as I'm concerned, they lost me last year for good as a reader.

[Julius Civitatus]

27. How about doing some REAL REPORTING?

How's that for a change?

How about stop transcribing WH memos and start telling truth to power?

How about getting rid of that embarrassing Elisabeth Bumiller?

How about the NY Times stops giving a megaphone to idiotic right wing propagandists like Bobo Brooks and Halfwit Tierny? And don't forget booting that incoherent Tom Friedman! Right now the "so-called liberal" newspaper of record, the NYT, has more conservative/neocon columnists than left of center (no, Dowd doesn't count; she just whines and gossips).

Any of those would be REAL steps toward credibility!

[AlGore-08.com]

28. How about firing everybody who got the "Iraq has WMD" wrong?

Start with that - - then we'll talk.

[Mountainman]

30. Looks like they are going to try to out FOX, FOX.

More religion and cater to the rural areas sounds like Ma and Pa Kettle go to Meetin.

[Corgigal]

31. Try a readers committee

Journalist make too much money to understand our lives anymore. You need the people to tell you what they find important, what they are interested in.

I'm A New Yorker subscriber, and I still don't buy the NYT's.

[lolly]

34. My Favorite Part of the Plan

They want to "respond more assertively to the paper's critics."

Anyone who has ever written them questioning their "reporting" knows how snide they are with their critics.

Has it occurred to them that way to start restoring credibility is to start listening to critics, and considering the possibility that those critics might be right?

[otohara]

35. Fire Judith Miller For Starters

and rewrite your mea culpa on Iraq and mention her fucking name this time. Tell the truth about Judith Miller and her mole Mr. Chalabi

[AuntiBush]

36. They're kidding - right!?!

Well, they got to PBS and now the NY Times. Screw them all!