Posted on 12/05/2002 7:53:05 AM PST by Leisler
NYT M.E. Gerald Boyd's(Howell Raines' butt boy) memo re Augusta
12/4/2002 4:45:56 PM Posted By: Jim Romenesko
Howell and I believe you should know The Times's response to questions that have been raised by some published reports in recent days about our coverage of the Augusta Golf Club story and our handling of sports columns on the subject.
First, we are proud of our leadership in covering this story. Our sports staff, with help from many desks, is doing exactly what some "accuse" us of doing: asking questions that no other organization is raising, and pressing energetically for the answers our readers want.
Augusta's restricted membership policies have been legitimate news for decades. With the ascendance of Tiger Woods and the campaign by the National Council of Women's Organizations, the club has become an inescapable story.
The decisions faced by CBS, a leading network that is a 46-year Masters partner of the club, are a significant part of the story. There is only one word for our vigor in pursuing a story -- whether in Afghanistan or Augusta.
Call it journalism.
Columnists in the news pages hold a special place at The Times. Each has wide latitude to speak with an individual point of view, always informed by diligent reporting and intelligent reasoning. In the sports pages, columnists have unique license to go beyond analytical writing and -- still informed by their reporting -- engage in robust argument, even express personal opinions on any side of an issue, within the bounds of sport, broadly defined.
Still, these columns are not on the Op-Ed page, and all newsroom writers are subject to our standards of tone, taste and relevance to the subject at hand. We are an edited newspaper: that is one of our strengths, and we believe our staff takes pride in it.
Recently we spiked two sports columns that touched on the Augusta issue. We were not concerned with which "side" the writers were on. A well-reported, well-reasoned column can come down on any side, with our welcome.
One of the columns focused centrally on disputing The Times's editorials about Augusta. Part of our strict separation between the news and editorial pages entails not attacking each other. Intramural quarreling of that kind is unseemly and self-absorbed. Discussion of editorials may arise when we report on an issue; fair enough. But we do not think they should be the issue.
In the case of this column, the writer had previously dealt with the Augusta controversy at least twice, arguing on October 6 against pressuring the golf club to admit women. His freedom to argue that way was not -- is not -- in question.
The other spiked column tried to draw a connection between the Augusta issue and the elimination of women's softball from the Olympics. The logic did not meet our standards: that would have been true regardless of which "side" the writer had taken on Augusta. The writer was invited to try again, but we did not think the logic improved materially.
None of what appears here should be taken as criticism of our columnists, whose work we value tremendously. And we would be happy to discuss our thinking over lunch or in any appropriate setting. Perhaps we need better-understood definitions or a more pronounced sense of column boundaries.
At any rate, we hope no member of our staff really needs this assurance that our news columns enforce no "party line." But all of you are welcome to come and talk with us whenever you have concerns or want to hear ours.
December 4, 2002
pressing energetically for the answers our readers want.
Shouldn't they be pressing for truthful answers rather than those that their market segment wants?
These guys are not even worthy opponents. When even the venerable NYT is bungled to death by these idiots, what's left for us to fight?
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