This sentence says it all, don't you think? The word screw-ups in quotes. The use of the adjective obsessively. The word tracked.
I've got some words that apply: defensive, arrogant, paranoid, lazy....
The New York Times has been printing outright lies for generations. It has been exposed hundreds of times. It never made a dimes worth of difference before. It's lies have had lots of exposure many times. It did not matter to the times. They kept right on lying and shouting that the lies were the truth. The times only cares what its liberal readers think. Liberal readers don't think so that solves that problem. The only other thing important to the Times is its ability to influence what Dan, Peter, Tom, and CNN put on the air. Raines had not lost that.
The problem in the NEW YORK TIMES was a staff revolt against Raines. Raines did not call a press conference to defend him self from Blogers. He hired a theater to have staff meeting to try to put down a staff revolt.
Rains tried to totally control an out of control staff. It is real simple. Raines fought the Staff and the Staff won. The staff got Raines and his number 2 guy also. Raines tried to put the staff on the defensive by attacking members of the staff and firing a couple of them. That did not intimidate the staff in any way.
When the owner found out the staff was ready to really blow the New York times Apart, he fired his fair haired pet and his number 2 guy too. Sultzberger has now brought the old boss back in an effort to appease the staff.
This is Mutiny On the Bounty and Raines is Captain Bligh.
The problems at the New York Times are just starting. The staff is sailing the ship. None of them have a clue about how to navigate the waters and the ship is going to sink. It is the mutiny and the soon to be fights among the mutineers that will bring down the New York Times.
If the publicly expressed opinions of the New York Times political opposition could fire the boss at the Times, it would have been done decades ago.