Kicking the Old Gray Lady while she’s down

I was going to pile on Howell “Forrest Gump” Raines today and his silly justifications for keeping his job, but it would be a drop in the blogging ocean by this point. Just go read Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus.

Instead I wanted to focus on a excerpt from Slate’s “Today Papers” about a recent report fronted on the NYT about looters in Iraq:

Yesterday's NYT went above-the-fold Page One with an anonymously sourced piece saying that GIs "will have the authority to shoot looters on sight." In retrospect, TP should have noted that the Times never explained what that might mean in terms of actual rules of engagement. (Try to drive away with a stolen car and get shot? How about meandering out of a store with a toaster?) In fact, the story didn't really clarify to what degree the new "shoot-on sight" concept was actually an order versus something more akin to an out-loud brainstorm. As it happens, it now seems that it was closer to the latter (unless, as is possible, the administration just did a quick flip). "Unless the soldier's life is threatened, we are not going out and shooting looters," said the commander of the U.S. 3rd Division yesterday.

Pop quiz: Given that the above quote directly disputes yesterday's big-time report in the Times, where do you run think it runs in today's NYT? If you answered "23rd paragraph of a stuffed story," congratulations, you seem to have what it takes to be a newspaper editor. [Emphasis in original]

This obscured clarification, along with many others, illustrates that the problem of sloppy reporting and bias is not isolated to a rogue reporter. It is a culture of scoop-addicted news-hawking that has become endemic at the Times. How else to explain this reference in the New York Times story about the New York Times’ scandal?

But Mr. Raines made clear that he viewed the session as something more: a forum on his 20-month tenure as the newsroom's leader. During this period the paper has won eight Pulitzer Prizes — six for its coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — but it has also been a time of dissension.

Congratulations Howell. With a big fat pitch (like 9/11) you can churn out Pulitzer Prize stories. Meanwhile, the rest of your team can’t run, catch, or throw straight.