Dear Mr. Hoyt. . .

Mr. Clark Hoyt
Public Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

public@nytimes.com

Dear Mr. Hoyt,

It has now been nine days since reporters at ABC News told us of “dozens of top-secret talks and meetings” held in the White House by senior Bush Administration officials to discuss in fine detail the interrogation techniques to be used on so-called “high value al Qaeda suspects,” and it has been one week since ABC told us that President Bush knew about these meetings and approved of the result—namely, the torture of certain detainees by CIA interrogators.

I make note of this timeline because, as of this writing, I am still waiting for the New York Times to report on these revelations.

At first I thought I had just missed the story. Surely the paper of record finds it newsworthy that the Vice President of the United States, The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the National Security Advisor (who is now, herself, Secretary of State) all gathered in the people’s house and there agreed to violate domestic law and international treaties—not to mention some of the principles most Americans consider central to what we are as a nation. Surely the Times thinks it noteworthy that a President that has repeatedly told your reporters and the American people that “we don’t torture” has now cavalierly admitted that we do, and did even while he claimed the contrary. Surely your paper, which only days earlier had reported on how one Justice Department Attorney had drafted a memo theoretically legitimizing torture for his bosses, came to realize with the reporting by ABC that the very highest ranking officials of the executive branch approved of torture and designed methods even before they obtained their legal “cover.”

Surely the New York Times could not have decided that none of this was worthy of some independent reporting or at least some prime space on their news pages.

At least that is what I thought.

But after a week of watchful waiting, it seems, I surely thought wrong.

A Times search of the terms “George Bush,” “George W. Bush,” and/or “President Bush” narrowed by “torture” turns up no entries after your April 2 news piece and April 4 editorial on the Yoo memorandum. Broadening the search to “Bush” and “interrogation” only adds an AP wire story about a DoJ probe of whether the advice in the March 2003 memo was even legal.

Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense to me. I cannot think of any rationale that would explain why the Times has chosen to ignore a story about a sitting President and his top officials discussing, designing, and approving methods by which to torture other human beings—no matter whether they are “high value suspects” or some other type of captive—especially when you have President Bush confirming on the record that these torture meetings took place. That is why I am now writing to you.

I would greatly appreciate an explanation from your point of view, and, of course, from the viewpoint of the editors in charge of delineating what are, to my mind, such skewed priorities.

I appreciate your attention, and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

[withheld]
New York City

This is the letter I sent this morning to New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt. While others have rightfully advocated for letters to the editor in order to protest what is a shameful silence by the establishment media in light of such grave revelations, I decided that it might also do us well to contact public editors, ombudsmen, and the like, since they are supposed to be our most direct link when we have questions about or problems with the choices made by the news organizations. They are also often tasked with investigating the errors and oversights of the reporters and editors.

I encourage all reading this to send their own questions to Clark Hoyt, and to similarly tasked people at other newspapers and television news divisions. If you have—and if you have had any response—please let me know in the comments section.

Thanks.


(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Of Mice and Men -or- When the “Robust” Get Bussed. . .

Just before Thanksgiving, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that a) yes, the Times had covered Senators Clinton and Obama on the front page to the near total exclusion of all the other candidates, and had done an especially poor job of covering the Edwards campaign, b) we should just wait, because there’s stuff on the other candidates coming up, and c) what you don’t see on the front page of the paper is made up for on the Times’s website, like on their “robust” blog, The Caucus. Since that column, the front page of the paper has seen (on the Democratic side) one mostly irrelevant hit piece about the relationship between John Edwards and John Kerry in 2004, then, a month later, a photo of Edwards with a jump to a back page featuring a sloppy, snarky, assertion-laden profile from that manufacturer of conventional wisdom, Adam Nagourney, and, of course, many, many more stories about Barack and Hillary.

As for that blog, well, if Thursday afternoon’s post is what Mr. Hoyt was thinking of as robust, then I think he should reconsider.

It’s been a bit of a game of cat-and-mouse, and an epic travel day, for five of the reporters who cover Mr. Edwards on a near-constant basis, two weeks from the Iowa caucuses. We started out in Manchester, N.H., and drove to the airport through the middle of a slightly hairy snowstorm that had already dumped six inches on parts of New Hampshire – and barely caught a 5:55 a.m. flight.

Then after stopping in Cincinnati, our second plane was unable to land in Omaha because of fog shrouding the airport, preventing any flights from arriving or departing. We circled the airport in a holding pattern for about 30 minutes until we were able to land.

In Des Moines.

Which is where the travel staff of the Edwards campaign scrambled to find a minivan to shuttle the press corps to the second event of the day (we missed the first), in Le Mars, Iowa, about a four-hour drive away.

. . . .

Mr. Edwards and his staff, it should be noted, flew on a private jet last night from Manchester and spent the night in Omaha.

At the moment, the press van – riding cautiously in the right lane – is 147 miles from Mr. Edwards’s next event, which starts in just under two hours. If we miss it, we’ll next try to chase Mr. Edwards down in Sioux City for his last event of the day.

So, let me see, the reason that the establishment press has been under-covering the Edwards campaign is John Edwards’s fault—is that it? I mean, what else am I supposed to take from this post? He’s campaigning too hard for you?

Did you and your buds ever get to Sioux City? Am I going to read a story anywhere in your paper about that event? How about the events from the prior day in New Hampshire? Wait, let me check. . . nope. I’m not exactly sure what you esteemed members of the corps are doing racing around the country if you don’t actually get to write stories—or is that not part of your job? Maybe The Caucus is just too robust for my lean intellect—it leaves me with more questions than it answers.

And I’m not the only one with questions. Take, for example, a commenter named Patty Morland:

From your description of what happened it really doesn’t seem applicable to use the words “cat & mouse” to describe this. Surely you’re not implying that Edwards is trying to lose you on purpose like a mouse would do to a cat? But maybe you are because after describing how Edwards’ campaign helped you with your transporation [sic] you then rewarded them by this “catty” remark:

Edwards and his staff, it should be noted, flew on a private jet last night from Manchester and spent the night in Omaha.

Or maybe I’m misreading this and you’re just trying to send a message to the NYT that they need to cough up some cash to pay for a private plane for you guys. No, it can’t be that because we all know corporate America only reserves the private jets for the executives. They aren’t really concerned about the safety or well being of the rank and file. Welcome to the two Americas.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Patty. Luckily, for those in rank and file America, the caucus-goers of Iowa are made of more robust stuff than the Times bloggers.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)