In my post on Bill Moyer's PBS show about the media and the war in
Iraq, I wrote:
The show was constructed as a kind of morality tale with people like
Judith Miller, the editors of the Washington Post and the NY Times,
Fox TV and Tim Russert serving as villains. The good guys, who come
across as much more likable and much more effective versions of
Woodward and Bernstein, are Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of
Knight-Ridder press. Knight-Ridder newspapers are distinctly
outside-the-beltway and serve the communities that offer up their
sons and daughters as cannon fodder for the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan. This means that the paper must be a bit more vigilant in
examining the justifications for war, as editor John Walcott
explained to Moyers:
"Our readers aren't here in Washington. They aren't up in New York.
They aren't the people who send other people's kids to war. They're
the people who get sent to war.
"And we felt an obligation to them, to explain why that might happen.
We were determined to scrutinize the administration's case for war as
closely as we possibly could. And that's what we set out to do."
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/bill-moyers-versus-the-lapdog-media/
Therefore, it is good news to see that a Knight-Ridder editor has
been named new public editor at the Times. God knows it needs all the
help it can get.
NY Times, May 4, 2007
The Times Names Clark Hoyt as New Public Editor
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
The New York Times yesterday named its next public editor, Clark
Hoyt, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who oversaw the
Knight Ridder newspaper chain's coverage that questioned the Bush
administration's case for the Iraq war.
Mr. Hoyt, 64, was the Washington editor at Knight Ridder from 1999
until the company was sold last year. His responsibilities included
overseeing the Washington news bureau, the chain's foreign bureaus
and the news service that the company ran jointly with the Tribune Company.
Before that, he served as Knight Ridder's Washington bureau chief,
and then as vice president for news, with responsibility for hiring
and promoting top editors at the company's newspapers, which included
The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The San Jose
Mercury-News and The Detroit Free Press.
In the prelude to the Iraq war and the early days of the war, Knight
Ridder stood apart from most of the mainstream news media in raising
some doubts about the Bush administration's claims, later
discredited, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and
ties to Al Qaeda. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times,
said that record contributed to his selection of Mr. Hoyt.
"There was a lot of work Knight Ridder did that was prescient, that
wasn't easy to do," Mr. Keller said. "It's always hard to go against
conventional wisdom. I think it probably brings him a measure of
credibility that helps in getting started on a job like that that
he's been associated with a brave and aggressive reporting exercise like that."
Mr. Hoyt said that in 2002 and 2003 he fielded a great deal of
criticism "from angry readers who believed that we weren't being
patriotic, from government officials who said that what we were doing
was wrong."
His appointment as public editor takes effect May 14 and lasts two
years. He will be the third person to hold the position since The
Times created it in 2003, following Daniel Okrent and Byron Calame.
Mr. Keller said that he had considered, but ultimately rejected, the
idea of hiring someone from within The Times, or someone from a
digital news operation.
Mr. Hoyt said that he could not predict what subjects he might focus
on. "They are likely to be driven by what readers care about and
complain about," he said.
Over the last year, he has spoken publicly about his concerns for the
future of the newspaper industry, arguing that weakening finances, a
toxic partisan atmosphere and coziness with government officials
threaten to undermine journalistic courage and integrity. He also
spoke before a Congressional committee, arguing for a stronger
Freedom of Information Act.
At Knight Ridder, he was part of group of journalists that fought
successfully for greater access to military combat units.
A graduate of Columbia College, the undergraduate liberal arts school
at Columbia University, Mr. Hoyt worked as a reporter for The Ledger
of Lakeland, Fla.; The Detroit Free Press; The Miami Herald; and the
entire Knight Ridder chain.
In 1973, he shared a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the history of
mental health problems suffered by Senator Thomas F. Eagleton of
Missouri, who briefly was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in
1972, and the fact that Mr. Eagleton had undergone electric shock therapy.
Mr. Hoyt also held top editing jobs at The Free Press and The Wichita
Eagle-Beacon. His wife, Linda Kauss, is a deputy managing editor at USA Today.
Since the sale last year of Knight Ridder to the McClatchy Company,
he has worked as a consultant to McClatchy.
James M. Naughton, a former Inquirer editor and emeritus president of
the Poynter Institute, a journalism research group, has known Mr.
Hoyt for years. Mr. Naughton said that his former colleague's most
important quality might be that "he has always been willing to zig
when everyone else zags."
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