Jay Rosen is respected by many, including mostly me, at dailykos. But he blew a lot of my respect with his
paean to Daniel Okrent. This part especially galled me:
[Okrent] listened (and responded) to critics of the Times more carefully than people at the newspaper thought necessary-- even the most partisan critics. He once wrote, "Closing one's ears to the complaints of partisans would also entail closing one's mind to the substance of their arguments." This he declined to do. In fact, he said his primary advice to Barney Calame would be to "engage with the paper's critics."
"I've had incredibly valuable, and frequently fascinating, conversations with Times detractors ranging from FAIR to CAMERA to Accuracy in Media; with people who find the paper anti-Catholic, anti-Labor, or anti-Whatever. The practice has done two things for me: it's enabled me to empathize with the critics, but also with those who daily endure the assaults of the critics."
Well, I can't speak for FAIR, but I find that passage a load of crap. Personally, I felt completely unrepresented by Okrent, whose assistants fired off insulting and cruel e-mails to readers with complaints, who personally penned an insulting column (now behind a firewall) attacking critics from the Left and who never, to my knowledge, addressed a substantive criticism from the Left.
Look at one of Rosen's examples:
Or this one on how "framing" issues in one way excludes others:
"The public editor found that the overall tone of our coverage of gay marriage, as one example, "approaches cheerleading." By consistently framing the issue as a civil rights matter--gays fighting for the right to be treated like everyone else--we failed to convey how disturbing the issue is in many corners of American social, cultural and religious life."
I do not know how FAIR feels about that passage, but I find it outrageous. Replace the word "black" for "gay" and put it in 1961 and see how you feel about it Rosen.
And Rosen has a lot to say about Jayson Blair. But this line was particularly stupid to me:
Ultimately Daniel Okrent will have had more influence on the New York Times than the notorious Jayson Blair.
I mean really. Jayson Blair was a third string reporter, how much influence did Jayson Blair have on the Times? Now, how about comparing Okrent with Judith Miller, a reporter Okrent refused to discuss in any detail, claiming it was before his time.
To this day the Times has refused to [CORRECTION] adequately address its atrocious coverage of the runup to the Iraq Debacle, the most important failing of the Times in recent years.
Why does Rosen do this? Perhaps this gives us a clue:
Numerous bloggers and critics of the paper--including myself--can testify to what Donald Luskin called a "productive relationship" with Okrent, who seems genuinely interested in what we have to say. (Ask Robert Cox.) This in itself is new. We'll have to establish that all over again with Byron E. Calame, but I am hopeful it will happen.
How wonderful. Take Jay Rosen's calls and he will praise you to the heavens. Good grief, talk about a cheap date.
Update [2005-5-15 13:53:28 by Armando]: Here is Okrent on the Times coverage of WMD and you may judge for yourself if you think it was hardhitting or not.