NYT: Perfectly Reasonable Questions: Portraying Unions in a Scott Walker Story

New York Times ^ | June 19, 2015 | Margaret Sullivan

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Last week’s cover story in The Times Magazine, “Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union,” drew hundreds of reader comments – and some mail to the Public Editor’s office. Two of the emails presented questions that I decided to pose to the magazine’s editor, Jake Silverstein.

[SNIP]

Mr. Silverstein’s response:

Thanks for your question. It’s a perfectly reasonable one. To me, the answer lies in the distinction between a magazine story and a story produced by the newsroom for the daily paper. As you note, “an article in the magazine is a feature and doesn’t have exactly the same function as a news story.” The major difference is that magazine feature writing allows for a reasonable amount of a writer’s subjectivity to be present in the formulation of a narrative. The magazine is extremely rigorous in terms of accuracy and fairness, of course, and it eschews direct argument (which is the province of Opinion); what it does best is tell stories, and all good storytelling is based on the teller having a perspective, a vantage on the events described. I absolutely don’t believe that this is the same thing as advocacy journalism.

[SNIP]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There are 2 questions and 2 answers - well worth the time to check out.

[Timocrat]

what it does best is tell stories, and all good storytelling is based on the teller having a perspective, a vantage on the events described. I absolutely don’t believe that this is the same thing as advocacy journalism.

A distinction without a difference.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It’s pretzel making.