Exchange with Times Ombudsman Daniel Okrent

I'm not a mudslinger. Rational discourse is a central ideal for me. But rational discourse can be overdone. It's futile when the person with whom the discourse is taking place is a numskull, a ninny, a dummkopf.

Such is the case with the man the New York Times has designated as its ombudsman -- Daniel Okrent.

It's not a conclusion I relish. But it's one I can no longer avoid in light of accumulated evidence.

Blockheadedness is actually the charitable explanation. It's perhaps likelier that Okrent's apparent fatal stupidity is deliberate and that he has knowingly betrayed his nominal responsibility as defender of truth and fairness.

I say "nominal" because the Times cannot be oblivious to the qualities of the idiot whom it has named their ombudsman. (They also refer to the position as "Public Editor.") It's reasonable to suppose that Okrent was never intended to be a proper ombudsman, and that his real role is all about phony appearances.

Since the establishment of urielw.com in 1999, the site has featured a "News That's Unfit" section containing specific criticisms of the Times's journalism. Items appearing since Okrent's appointment in December, 2003 have been forwarded to him. This practice ends as of now. My multiple exchanges with Okrent and his assistant, Arthur Bovino, suggest that no issue I've forwarded has received anything other than incompetent treatment.

One of the exchanges concerns an issue I brought to Okrent's attention April 14, 2004 -- a plainly erroneous editorial that had appeared the previous day.

The issue was not of huge import. It wasn't a top story. But the editorial was wrong, and its wrongness was plain enough that it should not have been beyond the Times ombudsman's ken.

Okrent not only failed to see anything objectionable about the editorial, but also told me that editorials in general are beyond his "purview."

The editorial in question scorned Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, asserting that a practice he routinely followed violated the First Amendment. "Legal experts" quoted in the Times's own news pages four days earlier, however, asserted the very opposite.

Here is the relevant passage from the editorial:

Most unwelcome, ... and offensive to the First Amendment, was [Scalia's] suggestion that he retains a "First Amendment right" to bar audio and visual coverage of his public speeches by the electronic media. There is no such right, as any person charged with safeguarding America's cherished free speech rights should easily see. With due respect, Justice Scalia, this is about something larger than being camera shy.

[Justice Scalia's Apology, New York Times, April 13, 2004]

Here is the relevant passage from the news article quoting "legal experts":

Justice Scalia does not typically allow audio or video recorders at his speeches, though he often allows print reporters to attend and take notes. Imposing such conditions ahead of time for speeches in private settings generally creates no legal problems, ... legal experts said.

[Legal Experts Express Concern About Erasure of Scalia Tapes, New York Times, April 9, 2004]

Okrent's initial response to my submission to him was:

The positions taken by the editorial board of The Times are not within my purview, nor should they be; the editorial board is entitled to its views, and readers are free to agree or disagree with them.

Okrent's view of the limitations on his "purview" was remarkable considering the Times article introducing him when his tenure began:

As public editor, or ombudsman, Mr. Okrent, 55, will operate outside the management structure of the newspaper's newsroom and its editorial page, [Executive editor Bill Keller] said. He will be given an unfettered opportunity to address readers' comments about The Times's coverage, to raise questions of his own and to write about such matters, in commentaries that will be published in the newspaper as often as he sees fit.

Mr. Keller said he and the newspaper's other senior editors had waived any right to review Mr. Okrent's commentaries before they are published.

[The Times Chooses Veteran of Magazines and Publishing as Its First Public Editor, October 27, 2003]

But Okrent ignored my followup to his "purview" message.

In a later message to Okrent, a month later, I remarked that he had not dealt with any of the several issues I'd brought to his attention to date.

His assistant Bovino requested clarification. I provided it. There was no followup.

About 6 weeks later, Bovino forwarded an item to me from another department at the Times. I took the opportunity to point out in my reply, again, that "of the series of serious and specific issues I've addressed your office on, NONE has been substantively addressed. Not one."

Again Bovino requested clarification. I provided the erroneous editorial issue as an example.

Bovino requested that I re-send it to him and promised: "I will send it to [editorial page editor] Gail Collins and ask for a response."

I complied. He wrote back confirming that he would forward it to Collins as he'd said. But first he wanted to request: "can you humor me and explain how there's something incorrect in the editorial?"

I explained it for him -- and heard nothing further.

A week later I wrote: "is this still pending with Gail Collins?"

"I sent a message to Ms. Collins on June 17th," Bovino replied. "We usually give editors and reporters two weeks before we follow up. Let's give it another week."

After more than a week I'd again heard nothing, so I inquired again. This time Okrent replied:

Let me step in here. The editorial page and the news pages are so independent of one another that there's no contradiction here. In this instance, the editorial page's experts apparently have a different view than the news pages' experts. Happens all the time. And, as I'm sure you know, the task of finding "legal experts" with differing opinions takes no more effort than two phone calls.

He ignored my followup.

Okrent occupies what should have been an important position in journalism. He's either an imbecile. Or he has betrayed the news profession and the troubled democracy the Times is supposed to serve.

FULL TEXT: Correspondence re Erroneous Editorial: Full text of my correspondence with the ombudsman's office relating to the editorial about Scalia.

NYT Ombudsman's Response

Dear Mr. Wittenberg,

You are of course entitled to your opinion of me and my work. But I'll accept your kind invitation to explain myself by listing a few of the principles I try to operate by, and how they apply to your objections:

1. Editorial opinion is protected opinion -- certainly protected from an ombudsman. I disagree with many Times editorials, but strongly believe that disagreement is not grounds for intervention or engagement in my professional capacity.

2. The invocation of unnamed "experts," either explicitly or implicitly, does not nail down a fact. Surely the difference on a thousand issues between, say, Justice Scalia and Justice Souter, would demonstrate that legal interpretation is not subject to the scientific method.

3. I receive nearly 1,000 e-mails a week. I have to employ a ranking system to address this enormous volume, and have chosen this one: People who have been mentioned in the paper, and who feel they've been misrepresented, move to the head of the line. Ordinary readers are next. Journalists and bloggers are last, but I confess I address those in descending order of readership size. I'll answer a query from the Wall Street Journal before one from the Ypsilanti News, one from the Ypsilanti News before one from you, one from you before a blogger I've never heard of before.

4. I don't have the time, or the inclination, to engage in debate; there's no reason why I should ever have the last word. Once I explained my position to you on the Scalia editorial, I felt you were more than free to comment on it any way you wished -- as you have.

Yours sincerely,
Daniel Okrent
Public Editor

Counter-Response to NYT Ombudsman

Dear Mr. Okrent,

I understand, as anyone should, that in your special (and enviable) public position, you must have legions of legitimate petitioners endlessly pursuing you (not to mention lunatics of every stripe). So I don't doubt your incoming mail is enormous, even unmanageable.

But that's not relevant here. You addressed my concern. I therefore expect the minimum attention required to deal with it properly. Volume justifies you in declining to address a concern; it doesn't justify handling a concern negligently.

Negligence

• May 4: I send you a message noting that you never adequately address the Times failures I seek to bring to your attention.

• Bovino (your assistant) requests clarification.

• I present the Scalia issue as an example.

• There is no response.

• June 16: When Bovino forwards something from another department at the Times, I take the opportunity to point out that "of the series of serious and specific issues I've addressed your office on, NONE has been substantively addressed. Not one."

• Bovino requests clarification.

• I again present the Scalia issue.

• Bovino replies: "Send me a message ... which cites the relevant editorial ... and I will send it to Gail Collins and ask for a response."

  (I note in passing that Bovino seems unaware of your strong belief that "editorial opinion is protected opinion.")

• I send what Bovino asked for. He further requests: "can you humor me and explain how there's something incorrect in the editorial?"

• I humor him. And hear nothing further.

• June 23: A week has passed and I ask: "is this still pending with Gail Collins?"

• Bovino answers: "I sent a message to Ms. Collins on June 17th. We usually give editors and reporters two weeks before we follow up. Let's give it another week."

• More than a week passes. I still hear nothing. I write again to inquire.

• At this point you enter the exchange with a short note dismissing my concern as a non-issue, a simple difference of legal opinion that "happens all the time."

• I reply, objecting to your point. I also raise a new issue: logically, if there's no problem with the editorial, then it must have been an error to forward my concern to Collins and lead me to expect a response. Can you acknowledge either problem?

• You do not respond.

• A couple of weeks later I bug you again about it.

• Bovino says you're busy and "will be catching up next week."

• After another month I bug you again about it.

• Bovino now says you're on vacation.

• In your absence, I request from Bovino just one tiny datum: "Did Ms. Collins never even acknowledge the concern you passed along to her?"

• But it seems the matter is too sensitive. Bovino is unable to divulge the information, and advises that I must await your return from vacation.

Mr. Okrent, I wonder if you can deny that my assiduous applications appear to have led to a futile runaround.

Error

My concern was that the editorial said Scalia couldn't legally bar audio and visual coverage of his speeches, while legal experts referred to in a news story uniformly held that he could. You argue, in effect, that expert legal opinion is arbitrary and insignificant, so the contradiction between the editorial and the news story is no problem:

The invocation of unnamed "experts," either explicitly or implicitly, does not nail down a fact. Surely the difference on a thousand issues between, say, Justice Scalia and Justice Souter, would demonstrate that legal interpretation is not subject to the scientific method.

But your position -- that legal opinion on this point is arbitrary and insignificant -- clearly conflicts with the editorial's plain meaning:

Most unwelcome, ... and offensive to the First Amendment, was [Scalia's] suggestion that he retains a "First Amendment right" to bar audio and visual coverage of his public speeches by the electronic media. There is no such right, as any person charged with safeguarding America's cherished free speech rights should easily see.

When the editorial asserts that "any [supreme court justice] should easily see" something, it is asserting that that something is NOT a mere arbitrary legal opinion. The editorial is asserting that it is a matter of being legally informed (or legally educated) -- and that if one is sufficiently informed, one will understand that Scalia's practice is not permitted under the First Amendment.

Obviously there are SOME legal issues on which experts disagree. That seems to have led you to infer that experts can disagree on ANY legal issue, and that editorial assertions about the law can therefore never be wrong. Clearly this position is untenable.

Purview

Since you presumably understood I was not questioning the Times's freedom to express any legitimate opinion it wishes, your statement appears to be functionally equivalent to "Editorials are protected." And that would be consistent with your initial response to my concern about the Scalia editorial, on April 14: "The positions taken by the editorial board of The Times are not within my purview...."

I wonder if any reader could find this consistent with the Times article introducing you and your new position to readers last October:

As public editor, or ombudsman, Mr. Okrent, 55, will operate outside the management structure of the newspaper's newsroom and its editorial page, [Executive editor Bill Keller] said. He will be given an unfettered opportunity to address readers' comments about The Times's coverage, to raise questions of his own and to write about such matters, in commentaries that will be published in the newspaper as often as he sees fit.

Mr. Keller said he and the newspaper's other senior editors had waived any right to review Mr. Okrent's commentaries before they are published.

[The Times Chooses Veteran of Magazines and Publishing as Its First Public Editor, October 27, 2003]

Opacity of Times Institution

Would you like to know how opaque the Times is, nearly a year later?

For myself and undoubtedly many readers, the Times is a significant component of the apparatus that rules the nation. Ordinary citizens may have their fond prejudices about what is truly going on in America -- it's easy to embrace one theory or the other -- but that whole apparatus, the Times included, is really completely opaque.

We know the Times is often interesting, often pleasurable, often does good by revealing rank injustices. But to believe that the Times's driving force is to discover truth and report it -- gratuitously, just for the sake of truth -- would demand a great deal of blind faith.

One thing's for sure: money and power are normally the chief motivators. And unless one is completely addled by free-market ideology, it's impossible to believe that for the Times, maximizing money and power would be consistent with the journalistic mission.

Consider the most staggering breach of journalistic mission imaginable -- promoting a false rationale for war. You may remember your call in your May 30 column for an "aggressive" investigation into Times failures on the WMD issue. They must be the failures of the decade. You were correct to write, "the paper owes both its readers and its own self-respect" an explanation of "how The Times itself was used" in the "cunning campaign" waged by the promoters of the WMD stories.

But the Times has not made much effort to explain the failures. Nor have you. Perhaps it's not only your incoming email that is overwhelming, but also the awful weight of wrongness and culpability you might address at the Times -- were you prepared to confront it.

There appears to be something more grave than journalistic error involved. You yourself wrote:

[Times] reporters who raised substantive questions about certain [Times] stories were not heeded. Worse, some with substantial knowledge of the subject at hand seem not to have been given the chance to express reservations.... When a particular story is consciously shielded from such challenges, it suggests that it contains something that plausibly should be challenged.

[Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction?, New York Times, May 30, 2004]

Who could suppose that "conscious shielding" of stories from scrutiny has anything to do with the journalistic mission?

What are the implications for democracy if the news media has been complicit in the promotion of a false threat of foreign aggression, for the purpose of building support for preemptive war?

Who was this war really for?

What is the responsibility of the media organs involved for a war that might not have occurred if news coverage had been balanced? And for the further acts of terrorism on U.S. soil that many Americans expect as a result?

Does an ombudsman have no role to play here? I thought so when I wrote you, on May 31, that there appeared to have been "deliberate efforts to present slanted information to readers" (Journalistic violations contribute to national disaster). But you never returned to the WMD issue.

Democracy's Only Hope

• In a 1999 Senate debate on campaign finance, one senator after another spoke of the impending demise of democracy in the U.S. (See ALERT: U.S. Democracy Under Siege.)

• Al Gore recently told The New Yorker magazine:

  There was a determination [on the part of the right wing], in the aftermath of the Reagan experience, to prepare themselves for the next opportunity they had. So that they would be comprehensive and uncompromising across the board. Then, when Gingrich and his crew succeeded, in '94, they laid the foundation for the identification of all the discrete levers of power and particular programs, policies, offices, agencies that needed, in their view, to be transformed.... Bush, as a candidate, basically shook hands with this collection of groups that were bound together to respect each other's respective self-interest. What they had in common was that they were all powerful and had a set of objectives that were counter to the public interest.

  ["The Wilderness Campaign," The New Yorker, September 13, 2004.]

• Paul Krugman has written that George Bush appears to be "the candidate of ... a small group of companies with a quite specific set of business interests ... who only pretend[ed] to be a hard-line conservative who pretended to be a moderate in order to gain office." (The One-Eyed Man, New York Times, October 31, 2001.)

Will democracy ultimately preserve itself as it's supposed to, with the citizenry learning to recognize the politicians who genuinely represent their interests? Perhaps only a wild optimist could think so. (A recent Times story --"Lie, and the Voters Will Believe," New York Times, May 12, 2004 -- reports that in the current presidential campaign, both parties are advertising lies, and voters believe them.)

You're a very civil gentleman. That's evident from your reply to my "dunce" article. But what's needed, for a Times ombudsman, is a patriot who recognizes the mortal and immediate threat to U.S. democracy, who is willing to roil the waters with hard questions, who is prepared to withstand searing hatred, and who has the stomach for a bloody brawl with a dirty, unprincipled and aggressive enemy.

I'm reminded of an account of an appearance by Bill Clinton at the Fortune magazine and Aspen Institute conference in 2003:

Clinton kept referring to the media as ... the "supine" media, pointing out that when Bush insulted Helen Thomas (who, by asking a rough question in the infamous prewar press conference had, Clinton said, "committed the sin of journalism"), no "young journalists" stood up and walked out.

The media, the supine media, was going to have to "go to the meat locker and take out its brains and critical skills...."

There was a party on the second day for Clinton ... and then, later that evening, a discussion between Clinton and President Kagame ... at Whiskey Rocks Bar.... This turned out to be the pivotal moment of the conference--even the primal one. When Clinton took questions, a young man from a technology company who identified himself as chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 in California said he was offended by Clinton's partisanship. To which Clinton, without hesitation, and with some kind of predatory gleam in his eye, said, "Good!" From there, Clinton went on, with emotion and anger, at a level seemingly foreign to most everyone here, to rip to shreds the motives, values, and legitimacy of the Republicans.

It was all anyone could talk about the next day. People seemed genuinely taken aback (some people kept offering that since it was late at night, in a bar, it didn't quite count) that one of their own might have violated the accepted codes of lofty liberal behavior. There was a little current of fear at the sudden recognition that testosterone could fuel politics. It was a shock, apparently, that we might be this close to real feelings. That politics could actually be personal.

[This Isn't War, by Michael Wolff, New York Magazine, August 25, 2003.]

You would be called a delusional liar. They'd float stories about your sexual proclivities. They'd convince people you tend to misplace your meds. (Another Krugman column, Smear Without Fear, April 2, 2004, reports how CNN's Wolf Blitzer offered glib remarks, which most viewers presumably lapped up uncritically, to the effect that Richard Clarke, the country's leading counterterrorism coordinator for ten years and author of a book criticizing Bush's war on terror, had psychiatric problems.) You might well lose the fight, and most of your friends as well.

But without straight news, democracy cannot succeed.

Sincerely,

Uriel Wittenberg

Again, I've promised to display here any response Mr. Okrent wishes to offer, but he has declined to respond further. --UW