Discussion: NYT Eliminates Public Editor Position, To Be Replaced By Reader Feedback

Now they can get back to doing what they love best–trashing Hillary with the e-mails shtick…

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I would have thought that with NYT earnings of $440 million last year and all those new subscriptions, they’d be able to afford a public editor. But nevermind.

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To post reader feedback you have to subscribe, Right?
NYTABC
(Always Be Closing)

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“Our business requires that we must all seek to hold ourselves accountable to our readers. When our audience has questions or concerns, whether about current events or our coverage decisions, we must answer them ourselves.”

"And we’ll do that by eliminating the one position that *potentially could have answered those questions.

*potentially, because Liz Spayd essentially rejected the “questions or concerns” of readers from the day she was hired.

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Gosh, they’ve never been accountable when it comes to all the lies they published about the Clintons!

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I always end up with the steak knives.

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You da stuck-ee.
(I apologize if anyone was offended)

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Phased out. Not fazed out. Please fix it. Please.

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So now the online comments is how they will be held answerable to their readers?

Bwhahaha

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"When our audience has questions or concerns, whether about current events or our coverage decisions, we must answer them ourselves.”

OK, I’ll bite, asshole. Why does the New York Times believe it should give a platform to a disingenuous anti-science climate denialist?

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Interview with Al Franken in NYT on books and writers and promoting the book he’s just published.

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Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?

I’m a huge admirer of Atul Gawande, author of “Being Mortal” and several groundbreaking pieces on health care in The New Yorker. I also really admire Dan Balz, who writes about politics for The Washington Post. He does the work, he’s incisive, he writes clearly and he has amazing integrity as a journalist.

Oh, I also like all the journalists who work for The New York Times.

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Should read, “Many papers over the years have phased out public editors…,” not “fazed out.”

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When it’s everyone’s job, it’s nobody’s job. A vastly expanded comments section. Sulzberger has no clue. (I wonder how long that will last before being overwhelmed.)

It’s interesting that on the one hand they never did understand that a public editor should hardly ever be defending the paper – papers do enough wrong things that you can always find something to pick on. But on the other hand, they were always being rolled by the Big Boys calling to complain about their coverage and disinvite them from parties.

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At least five seconds after it launches (refer to Yahoo’s comments section)

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Was the NYT public editor ever effective? I had the impression that the position was used more often to whitewash and/or justify poor reporting.
“If the public editor has signed off, it must be ok!”

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From 1/20/17

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Pretty much the story of my life.

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Having nobody is better than having Liz Spayd. She was objectively terrible at her job, rejecting or ignoring valid concerns and constantly lecturing readers to consider the struggles of bigots or embracing right-wing fever dreams and conspiracies. Good riddance.

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Good. I’d prefer that they have none at all rather than a voice basically serving as an apologist for the conservative Villager status quo, which seemed to be her mission.

I canceled my subscription when they hired the climate change denier from the Wall Street Journal, to add to the roster of Republican opinion columnists already replete with religious nutcase Ross Douthat and the really-even-more-awful-than-you-thought David Brooks.

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