The NYT still enjoys enormous public credibility (deserved or not). They know their public reputation is on the line.
The NYT dumped How Raines last June after the Jayson Blair and other plagiarism scandals.
Bill Keller is less biased than Raines.
The NYT hired an ombudsman for the first time. Daniel Okrent is having an effect, but it couldn't be just that guy. The NYT management seems to understand they have to make changes.
The NYT is watching what is happening to the BBC.
The NYT has begun issuing corrections for factual mistakes made by columnists. Just this week they finally issued a correction for Maureen Dowd's misquote from last May of President Bush to the effect that he said Al Qaeda was not a problem anymore, when he meant that those Al Qaeda who were dead were not a problem anymore.
Now they dump Rall.
Could Mo Do be next on the chopping block? Simply removing her from the Op-Ed page would improve it by its absence. It must be a tempting thought for them.
Meanwhile, Bill Keller's wife used to date John Kerry (or so Freeper scuttlebutt has it.) The NYT has been very pro-homosexual marriage even as the NYT tries to increase its circulation in the Heartland, where coastal elite sodomite lifestyle choices are less well appreciated.
The NYT is running scared.
The NYT will be very responsive to conservative criticism during this election year, I think. Let 'em have it.
Also.............. Could Mo Do be next on the chopping block?
We can only hope. Maybe she'll find her proper place in one of those artsey-fartsey 'Free/Independent' newspapers (i.e fishwrap) alongside her soulmate Rall.