William Kristol Has the Gray Lady’s Knickers in a TwistMEDIA
• Both Times public editor Clark Hoyt and former Times conservative standby William Safire have panned Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger’s decision to foist William Kristol on the editorial page. Among the other conservatives considered and passed over: Charles Krauthammer, Ross Douthat, Max Boot, and a bunch of other Weekly Standard stalwarts. But at least Judith Miller approves: “[I]t’s an appointment that’s a long time coming. The page needed balance.… [But] an unabashed neocon without remorse is unacceptable to Times people.… He’s not kosher in that sense.” [New Republic]
• New York Observer president Robert Sommer nailed his MSNBC interview: “We like to view our readers as some of the smartest, most insensitive — most… Some of the most brightest readers in the country and especially New York.” [NYO]
• David Blum goes through his fifth sex columnist in little more than a year, firing his latest hire at the New York Press after she stole questions from Dan Savage. Some might call that slutty! [NYO]
ink-stained wretches
When Journalists Attack … Other JournalistsRemember Alive? The book/early–Ethan Hawke movie where the plane crashes and everyone’s starving so they become cannibals? Okay, whatever we are old. The point is, we’re kind of reminded of that whenever a journalist covers another journalist’s missteps in that over-the-top holier-than-thou tone. Times are tough, and so they’re eating their own in order to save themselves. We thought about this last week when Katie Couric clamped down on Dan Rather’s “sloppy reporting” with her little white teeth, and today, the smell of media blood is in the air again. Over at the New York Press, Matt Elzweig feasted on the flesh of the Times Magazine’s Deborah Solomon in a deeply self-serious “examination of the questionable ethical choices one very prominent reporter made on behalf of the nation’s top newspaper” blah blah blah blah Jayson Blair blah blah.