[Liz]

"Pinch" comes off as the bad seed, an aberration in "Punch" Sulzberger's gene pool. The Little Prince screwed-up bigtime.

[Liz]

Howell Raines spills his guts.

[Bahbah]

"the Times badly needs to raise the level of its journalism...."

I must say I agree with old Howell on this one. I wonder if we are thinking of the same ways to raise the level.

[an amused spectator]

Media Schadenfreude ping - Raines Rains Mainly On The Pinch

On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/

[FreedomFarmer]

...the Times badly needs to raise the level of its journalism...

It has been my experience that adding water to a stagnant pond only churns up the scum, and makes the slime more treacherous.

[Nick Danger]

"Nowadays, I think of Jayson Blair as an accident that ended my newspaper career in the same unpredictable way that a heart attack or a plane crash might have," writes Raines.

Only partly true. It was an accident in the same way that having a heart attack after 30 years of smoking three packs a day and eating nothing but eggs benedict for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is an accident.

Jayson Blair had been emitting smoke for a long time before he burst into flames. Raines was, to use his own favorite word, "complacent" about it.

The fact that Raines was also on a mission to turn America's Foremost Leftist Newspaper into the American Left's Foremost Newspaper should have had even more to do with it, but it appears that Sulzberger was in full agreement with that part. Damn them both, as far as I'm concerned.

[NonValueAdded]

"...that the Times badly needs to raise the level of its journalism, and to do so quickly in order to survive and make the full transition to the digital age"

Does that roughly translate into "they can now know when we are lying"?

[Enduring Freedom]

"The difference between Punch and Arthur is the difference between the Marine Corps, where Punch had his formative experience, and Outward Bound, where Arthur had his," Raines writes. Both experiences teach you how to get to the top of the mountain, he notes, "but Arthur wants it to be touchy feely along the way."

BWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Who knew the Old Gray Lady was an MTV Goth?!

[backhoe]

Cross-link:

-The Old Grey Info-Slut... the NYT/Jayson Blair Affair--

[AnnaZ]

Raines states in the Atlantic essay that he strove in his two-year run at the top to shake up a culture of "mañana journalism" and to dispel what he called the "dangerously outmoded Times maxim, 'It's not news until we say it's news.'

Yup, they done lost that crown.

[McGavin999]

The only way you are goiing to fix the NYT is to fire everybody there and start out with a whole new crew. The new people would have to be told that any editorial slant in any news item would result in immediate termination.

Since that will never happen the NYT will continue is spriral downward into the muck.

[NYCVirago]

Raines states in the Atlantic essay that he strove in his two-year run at the top to shake up a culture of "mañana journalism" and to dispel what he called the "dangerously outmoded Times maxim, 'It's not news until we say it's news.'

What Raines will be most remembered for, besides the Jayson Blair thing, is his obsessive "flooding the zone" for Martha Burk's crusade against the Masters. That sounds like creating, not covering, news to me. Notice that now that Raines is out, Burk is no longer planning any Masters' protests?

[GOPJ]

Raines likens Sulzberger's efforts to thwart the paper's gossipmongers to a cartoon character known for persistence - and failure: "Every executive editor has been frustrated by the Times grapevine, and Arthur sometimes comes across as Wile E. Coyote, so elaborate and endlessly hopeful are his schemes to thwart the gossip network."

Ummmm, would that be like endlessly silly schemes that never work or like the puffed-up idiocy of one who never wins?