I know I’m a week late to this party…
The New York Times has made some internal recommendations to improve reader confidence and make themselves and their processes more transparent.
Some bloggers have been calling for the Times and other mainstream media outlets to go all the way to complete transparency – put transcripts of interviews online, for example.
I agree with some of the recommendations – it can only improve things to the point where I no longer play ’spot the typo’ with the front page of the Times and the PR guy in me likes the idea of making editors and writers ‘more available’ but I have to draw the line at the notion of putting complete transcripts of interviews and documentation from articles up online.
These people are called journalists and go to j-school for a reason. That is to have insights and abilities to find a story and draw it out of a subject. If I’m reading Todd Purdum’s analysis of the President’s last news conference, I’m doing it knowing that he’s been up there covering the White House for a few years longer than I and has some insight into the nuances that I don’t. I have no reason to read the complete transcripts – that’s HIS job and his editor’s job.
There’s a reason it’s called a newspaper and they’re called journalists… and this is a blog and I’m a blogger.
Now of course, the fact that there’s a bias at the Times and elsewhere, well that’s no surprise. I’ve known that for years. That’s why I hardly read the Times without also reading half a dozen or more other sources. That’s just responsible citizenship.
