GU Alum Margaret Sullivan, NY Times Public Editor

[Loyal Hoya]

I think Margaret Sullivan has been a great voice for good journalism, since she started as the NY Times Public Editor in September.

I particularly liked "He Said, She Said, The Truth"

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/public-editor/16pubed.html?ref=thepubliceditor&_r=0

I also think she was right to criticize Nate Silver for offering Joe Scarborough a bet on the Presidential outcome as well as to include David Leonhardt's praise of Silver's excellent work in her next blog post.

publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/the-timess-washington-bureau-chief-and-legions-of-others-in-defense-of-nate-silver/

She seems to have provoked more useful discussion in just a couple of months than some of her predecessors in 2-3 years on the job.

[EasyEd]

Ms. Sullivan's message: the NY Times will decide what's truth.

[TC]

Nov 3, 2012 10:23:24 GMT -5 Loyal Hoya said:

also think she was right to criticize Nate Silver for offering Joe Scarborough a bet on the Presidential outcome

Why? That seems like a giant box of worms to frown on wagering, and I don't see how trying to defend a mathematical model by being willing to wager money on it (in this case, not gaining anything personal) makes you look any more or less partisan. I will say that she laid out her case against wagering a lot better in her second piece - in her first she lay out virtually no reasoning for why a journalist making a wager might be considered partisan, and yet she was very heavy handed in her discussion of standards.

Similar example, from the conservative side in defending an analysis/model from criticism - in this case by Paul Krugman rather than Joe Scarborough, that went over the top:
gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/03/wanna-bet-some-of-that-nobel-money.html

I don't see any reason why Mankiw offering a wager makes him any more or less partisan.

[nychoya3]

I can see both sides of this, but I think as a general matter punditry would be of a higher quality if pundits had money at stake on their predictions.

Anyway, I enjoy Sullivan's work, and glad to learn she's a Hoya.

[Loyal Hoya]

TC - I agree that her first piece described the circumstances under which Silver made the wager but did not adequately explain why it was a bad idea in the first place. The second piece better explained her rationale and also acknowledged the point that nychoya3 made.

I am perfectly comfortable with Mankiw as an independent blogger offering a wager to Krugman - though I don't think that Krugman, as a Times employee should accept. I am a big fan of Krugman, but I think that implying that Mankiw was evil when the debate was over growth forecasts was over the top.

EasyEd:

Sullivan has indeed praised the Times as often as she has been critical, but she has shown that she is willing to be critical. She criticized Silver's handling of the Scarborough attack. She wrote about her concern that the Times vigilantly report the role/knowledge of its incoming publisher in the BBC Jimmy Savile scandal, and she was critical of some of its reporting on the drone strikes in Pakistan. This is what she said about the NY Times' reporting on drone strikes:

"But The Times has not been without fault. Since the article in May, its reporting has not aggressively challenged the administration’s description of those killed as “militants” — itself an undefined term. And it has been criticized for giving administration officials the cover of anonymity when they suggest that critics of drones are terrorist sympathizers."

Anyway, my main point was to point out the GU roots of a person whose work I respect.

[AustinHoya03]

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/05/new-york-times-margaret-sullivan