Daniel Okrent is the outgoing Public Editor of the New York Times.
As Public Editor, it's his job to review the newspaper.
There are fair reviews and unfair reviews, however.
In Okrent's final column as Public Editor, he took cheap swipes at economist and op-ed writer Paul Krugman.
Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults….I didn't give Krugman...the chance to respond... I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist.
Acolytes
Apparently, people who like Paul Krugman's articles aren't "fans." They're "acolytes."
The word "acolyte" is defined at Merriam Webster's m-w.com as "1 : one who assists the clergyman in a liturgical service by performing minor duties 2 : one who attends or assists : FOLLOWER."
Okrent is giving unwanted religious connotations to social science articles and people who like reading them.
No Examples
Also note that Okrent doesn't give any EXAMPLES of articles by Krugman which are supposedly misleading.
No Response Asked of Krugman
Regarding Okrent not getting a response from Krugman for use in the article:
That is ok per se. Writers don't need to seek responses from everyone they write about.
But Daniel Okrent makes an obnoxious spectacle of himself by writing, "I didn't give Krugman...the chance to respond... I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist."
It's a practical impossibility for Paul Krugman to get a response from every politician he writes about even if he wanted to.
Furthermore, politicians have usually already had plenty of space to express their side of a story by the time a subject reaches a place in the discourse where op-eds are being written about that subject in connection to that politician.
Daniel-Okrent-writing-about-someone-who-works-at-his-own-newspaper is a different situation. If Okrent had a specific or general criticism of Krugmans' articles, he could have called Krugman. Or not called him and kept that to himself.
It's unacceptable that Okrent decided to not-call Krugman and then to obnoxiously boast about that decision.
More Criticism of Okrent, and a Discussion of Journalism
Other criticism of Okrent is in this comment at "The Daily Kos" blog by liberaldregs on May 21, 2005:
It appears that Okrent doesn't understand what an op-ed page is for. It's for opposing views. That's the "op" part. ..
I find the attack on Krugman particularly appalling. Paul Krugman is an economist, not a journalist. Economists, like other social scientists, tend to adhere to an intellectual process where a hypothesis is backed up by observed data and objective reasoning. Just about anyone who works with quantitative data shapes and slices it. That's what "analysis" is. There are whole textbooks about shaping and slicing data. People get PhDs for finding better ways to shape and slice data. There is a whole market segment in the software industry that makes software that shapes and slices data.
And that's what appears to bother Mr. Okrent. Somebody actually started with an opinion, and collected facts and data to support that opinion. By analyzing people's arguments in favor or against particular assertions, you become informed and can then form and support your own opinions.
But, silly me, I'm just one of those reason-based liberal eggheads who insist on shaping and slicing data. I'm obviously not an objective journalist, and I just don't get how objective journalists operate. (That's the clear message coming out of these diatribes from the MSM.)
Well, here's how I think these "objective" journalists work. The NYT is not a "liberal" or a "conservative" or a "moderate" paper. The NYT has its own strange ideology shared by much of the rest of the mainstream print media. This ideology operates as follows:
(a) There are always two sides to an issue. There is never one side. There are never three or more sides. To paraphrase Monty Python, "two is the number of thine counting."
(b) Each side of an issue is equally valid.
(c) Each side is framed by what newsworthy people are willing to espouse to frame issues. George W. Bush can get up and say that the sun revolves around the earth, or (as he did) that evolution is not an acceptable scientific theory: the mere fact that POTUS said it makes it a valid side of an issue.
...The correct position is invariably half-way in between. Only liberal geeks think that there might be nuances and subtleties in the world. You know, the same people who shape and slice data.
(d) It follows from b and c above that there must be an equal number of facts on each side and therefore any representation to the contrary is wrong, unobjective, and a threat to journalism.
(e) Any person or institution that does not adhere to the above intellectual process is a direct attack on both journalism and a personal attack on right-thinking objective journalists.
(f) Them internets are a threat to journalism because the NYT and other right-thinking journalists can't police every blog on the planet.
(g) The NY Times is the High Church, and must be protected from all the barbarians at the gate. (In this regard, they work like most American corporations.)
See also:
The Filibuster, as Described in a BALANCED Article from the AP
