Thursday, May 03, 2007
Yay!
- The Times Names Public Editor
The New York Times today named its next public editor, Clark Hoyt, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who oversaw the Knight Ridder newspaper chain's coverage that questioned the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.
In the prelude to the Iraq war and the early days of the war, Knight-Ridder stood apart from most of the mainstream news media in consistently raising doubts about the Bush administration's claims, later discredited, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said that record contributed to his selection of Mr. Hoyt.
Mr. Hoyt said that in 2002 and 2003 he had fielded a great deal of criticism "from angry readers who believed that we weren't being patriotic, from government officials who said that what we were doing was wrong."
[...O]ver the last year, he has spoken publicly about his concerns about the future of the newspaper industry, arguing that weakening finances, a toxic partisan atmosphere and coziness with government officials threaten to undermine journalistic courage and integrity. He also spoke before a Congressional committee, arguing for a stronger Freedom of Information Act.
At Knight-Ridder, he was part of group of journalists that fought successfully for greater access to military combat units.
