Sending Good Thoughts to Pyongyang Central Court

Trial of Current TV's Laura Ling and Euna Lee Set for Tomorrow

Unlike the high-profile campaign to get Roxanne Saberi out of Iran, any efforts to get Current TV's Euna Lee and Laura Ling out of North Korea have been well-concealed.

We're assuming there's a good reason for that, given the loose cannons in control in Pyongyang, some of whom would dearly love a propaganda slam-dunk against the U-S.

The pair were detained March 17 and charged with illegally crossing into North Korea from China and other so-called "hostile acts" that could land them up to 10 years in a labor camp.

North Korea has denied diplomats -- in this case, Swedes representing U.S. interests -- since March 30 in contravention of international law. Surprise, surprise.

And we can all guess how a purported trial will turn out. Will Kim Jong-Il and his gang put on a show, convict the two and then give them an unceremonial boot from the country? Or, will North Korea try to scapegoat Lee and Ling while the contretemps over the missile tests rages on? It probably also doesn't help that nobody knows who's really in charge over there and what their agendas might be.

Current is, of course, Al Gore's baby. It's hard to tell whether that's hurting or helping the reporters' cause. The channel has put up a wall of silence about Lee and Ling in the apparent belief that saying nothing increases the chances of not pissing off the notoriously pissy North Koreans.

Let's hope Kim and Co. know that silence doesn't mean Lee and Ling have been forgotten. On that front, North Korea cannot win.

Let's also hope they consider the trial their own little show -- a perverse amusement to brighten their otherwise-dour lives -- and then remember that when the show is over, it's time for the performers to go home.

No Film at 11: L.A. Mayor Gets the Scoop on Another Local Anchorette

Somehow, KTLA Says Lu Parker Not Ethically Challenged by Bonking Area's Top Politician and Reporting on Him

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likes the media. Actually, he loves the media, specifically two local anchors.
First, it was an affair with Telemundo's Mirthala Salinas. When news of that liaison broke, so did the mayor's marriage, along with Salinas' career at channel 52.
Now, Mayor V has moved on to Lu Parker at KTLA. Their coupling was apparently news to her bosses, until recently. But according to The Los Angeles Times they don't seem too hot and bothered by one of their anchors doing the mattress mambo with Hizzoner.
"Now that we're aware of the relationship, she will no longer be covering local politics," said KTLA-TV news director Jason Ball. "I have the utmost faith in Lu Parker's abilities."

And lest you think Ball wasn't toeing the station's party line, his boss adds for emphasis:
"There is no concern as to the ethics whatsoever," said General Manager Don Corsini. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a personal matter."
Corsini's answer is very convenient, not to mention unsatisfying.
It's not that Parker isn't allowed a personal life. But to then say her love life can be managed on-air by simply having her read the stories about pileups on the 405 and a triple murder in Watts puts the station in a bind, to say the least.
And what does it say about Parker's judgment, that she and Villaraigosa have been an item since March, yet she, in effect, had to be outed for her station to know about her relationship? In doing so, she compromised whatever credibility KTLA has in the process. Yet her bosses don't seem to have a problem with her choices.
That, in and of itself, is a problem.

Westchester Magazine Feature on Top Dentists Has Credibility Cavity

A Shameless Mix of Ads and Editorial

You can't fault Westchester Magazine for running advertising supplements; just about every magazine does.
But you can easily find fault when they try to pawn off those supplements as legitimate editorial copy, as it did in its latest issue with what was ostensibly a feature on the county's top dentists. The "piece" was bannered across the front cover.
Inside, is one paragraph that explains how the magazine "asked" topDentists, an Augusta, Georgia, database of dental professionals to do the tallying "as determined by peer reviews collected and analyzed by topDentists from thousands of dental professionals in the Westchester area."
Yeah, right.
From the get-go, this list had a big stink to it, and not because my own in-demand dentist wasn't on the list.
It's because there is absolutely no editorial copy about said dentists. There's copy all right, 18 pages worth. But it's a giant supplement paid for by, you guessed it, topDentists.
This wouldn't be a problem if it was a standalone ad supplement. But it's promoted on the cover, is in the magazine's table of contents and has its imprimatur ("Westchester Magazine asked topDentists....")
At best, it's shameful for a magazine that recently has tried to raise its profiles with several news features that are a departure from their more-typical service articles (10 Most Romantic Places to Kiss, 25 Great Getaways).
Westchester Magazine has long arrived in my mailbox on the thick side, remarkable in these recessionary times. But it turns out, as a source told me, many of their ads are actually bartered. So, while it's covering one of the most-affluent counties in the country, it's not rolling in as much dough as they'd like you to believe. I found that out a couple of years ago when I interviewed for a senior editor's job there. All was going swell until we started discussing money.
The magazine wanted someone who lived in Westchester. But they only wanted to pay a salary more befitting for West Chester, Pa.
Yet, still I read, and I generally like what they do. Until now.
The dentist supplement is a fiasco, to put it very kindly.
The money might have been nice, but what price credibility?

Oy, Vey! The Jewish Week Needs A Geography Lesson

White Plains is Where?

The May 15 issue of New York Jewish Week had an article on how a syngagogue in the city of White Plains, north of New York, was going to transform its space into a replica of Tel Aviv, in honor of that city's centennial.
The headline: Tel Aviv on the Hudson.
Cute? Feh.
The problem: White Plains is about 10 miles from the Hudson River. Tel Aviv on I-287 would have been more accurate.
However, that's what happens when you have editors who may never have ventured north of the Bronx and think anything outside of the city is "the country."
Which would be news to folks in White Plains, what with its skyscrapers, including a luxury 42-story condo that's also home to a Ritz-Carlton.
You know, the country.

It's a Spelling Bee, Not a Steel Cage Match

Washington Post Live Blog Too S-N-A-R-K-Y For Its Own Good

It's all well and good that The Washington Post is covering the National Spelling Bee, and live blogging it no less.
But a little perspective, please, is needed from writer Dan Steinberg, even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek.
In other words, lose phrases like: "As expected, the massive success in Round 4 led directly into a Round 5 bloodbath."
Bloodbath? C'mon.
These are kids. Let them be kids. This isn't Ultimate Fighting. A big deal, yes. But blood won't be spilled, even in a euphemistic way.
I know first-hand what it's like to lose in a spelling bee on a word you should have known (abhor, I added an e). I almost cried. But no blood was shed.
Sure, it sucked. But even in my 12-year-old way, I put the loss in perspective. Steinberg should do the same.

New Metropolitan Section M.I.A. From New York Times....

At Least at My Front Door

I'd be curious for your impressions of the print version of the new Metropolitan section of The New York Times in part because the folks who drop the paper on my stoop every morning (and like to have conversations at 5:15 a.m.), neglected to give me a copy.
Normally, I got my late and lamented Westchester section on Saturdays with all the feature sections. But its replacement didn't show yesterday either.
Judging by what I see online, the aim is a little, and I mean little, something for everyone. That's too bad, given the final Westchester section had several articles that the hometown incumbent, The Journal-News, with its Gannett-imposed mediocrity, would never dream of doing.
At least there are still zoned arts and restaurant reviews, also badly needed in the 'burbs.
So, maybe next week. And if you see whomever's dropping off my paper, please tell them to shut the hell up.

Clemens Book by Daily News Reporters Gets Rave Review --- From The New York Times

Michiko Kakutani Goes Deep In Praise of "American Icon"

The New York Daily News doesn't have the same hate-hate relationship with The New York Times that it does with the New York Post.

Still, it was a bit jarring today to see Michiko Kakutani's lengthy Times review of "American Icon," a thorough dissection of Roger Clemens by the sports investigative team of the News (Michael O'Keeffe, Christian Red, Tori Thompson and Nathaniel Vinton, above), refer to the book as "gripping."

By focusing on Clemens and the people around him, the authors have turned the sprawling story of steroid-use into a sleek narrative that reads like an investigative thriller, peopled by a Dickensian cast of characters, from big-name ball players and their high-powered lawyers to small time bodybuilders and gym owners, from federal investigators and members of Congress to denizens of “the violent criminal underworld of muscle-building drug distribution.”

Nothing wrong where giving credit where credit is due. Which is why you'll never see the book mentioned in the Post.

Digging The Grave of Business Magazines Real Easy When You Don't Have a Clue

Douglas McIntyre and 24/7 Wall Street Again Prognosticate in a Vacuum

Analyzing the state of business magazines and forecasting their imminent doom in their current form is the media equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Yet, somehow 24/7 Wall Street misses the mark.
The Web site has a missive from media doomsayer Douglas McIntyre with all sorts of "the sky is falling" perspectives on the state of things at Fortune, Forbes and Business Week.
Some of it's true and obvious, i.e. ads are waaaaay down. McIntyre makes the case that come the end of the year, one or all of them will continue to exist but not in their current forms and makes his case with web traffic numbers and ad revenues.
Fine, at least to a point. But then he pisses away his thesis with observations like these:

Fortune could decrease its frequency of publication to monthly and rely on the Internet to cover current news.

C'mon, is Fortune really in the business of covering news in print? Nah, never really has been. It's about profiles, investigations, looking at the big picture, the Fortune 500. News is not on its radar. And monthly? The folks who used to work at Portfolio could tell you how that worked out.
McIntyre issues a similar prescription for Forbes, which he says wouldn't be a big deal because its Web site is so successful and its readers are already accustomed to going online. But at the same time he also states Forbes' online revenue isn't growing. And how would reducing frequency change that? We never get an answer.
As for Business Week, McIntyre may be on to something. Maybe.

No matter what McGraw-Hill does, BusinessWeek will not be a weekly magazine with over 200 employees and a rate base of 900,000 at the end of the year. BusinessWeek will have to become a much, much smaller operation.

Of course, anyone who's opened a copy of Business Week lately (the latest issue is all of 76 pages), knows it can't get much smaller.
Less frequent, yes. Leaner? Ditto. But smaller? You're there already.

Door Hits Reading Eagle Employees On the Way Out

No Severance Pay, Even For Those Who Put In Decades at the Paper


Long gone are the days when you got laid off from a newspaper that you took it personally. At some shops, it's probably more of a surprise when you can still log on to your computer.
So, at first glance when the Reading Eagle announced May 1 it was eliminating 12 percent of its workforce, it was sad but hardly unexpected news.
But what the paper didn't tell its readers was the affected employees were escorted from the building after being told they were getting no severance pay.
No as in nada, zip, gornisht.
That includes guys like Ron Romanski, the assistant photo editor who put in 45 years at the Eagle.
"It shocks everybody I talk to," he told Editor & Publisher. "I'm thinking about suing them. I didn’t think it would happen to me."
Oh, to be fair (sort of), the Eagle did provide two weeks of benefits to give those kicked to the curb enough time to apply for COBRA.
But no severance pay? How do you do that if you're the type who can still look at themself in the mirror and sleep at night? That especially goes for a private, family-owned business.
For the Ron Romanskis of this world, family has taken on a whole new meaning.

Boy, I Didn't See This One Coming

Headline for a Boston Herald story with the latest twist in the saga of the accused Craigslist killer:

Philip Markoff's fiancee calls off wedding.

I know, me too. A real shocker.
Still, it's quite a turnaound from two days ago, when she was doing her Tammy Wynette imitation.
Guess it was better to call off the wedding now rather than go through a D-I-V-O-R-C-E later.

Balls, Strikes And A Pink Slip

Baltimore Sun Staffers Get Laid Off While Covering Orioles Game

By now, many have you heard about the latest bloodbath at the Baltimore Sun, which shed 61 more journalists -- one-third of those left -- from the Sun's already-lonely newsroom.
No layoff, no matter where it occurs, is pleasant.
But someone in the Sun brain trust apparently wanted to take that maxim to a new level. From the Guardian in the U.K. comes word that writers and photographers covering the Orioles-Angels game on Tuesday were told during the game their jobs would soon be no more.
During the game. As if they didn't have enough on their mind keeping a close eye on the action, now they also had to think about how to feed their families along with getting their work in on deadline.
The poop in the pressbox was first reported by the Orange County Register's Bill Plunkett, who was there when the news was delivered.
The article doesn't name the journalists, and the Sun isn't talking specifics, but Jeff Zrebiec, who wrote yesterday's game story, and national baseball writer Dan Connolly are likely on the chopping block.
All of which shows Sun managers are a bunch of losers, just like the Orioles.

E-Golenbock: Alert Correspondent Cries Foul Over New Steinbrenner Book

When Facts Strike Out; Checking a Manuscript Too Much of a Bother for John Wiley & Sons

Author Peter Golenbock has been nothing if not prolific for more than 30 years, churning out sports books -- many of them about baseball.

Perhaps the best known, "The Bronx Zoo," about the then-hugely talented but immensely dysfunctional New York Yankees, rode The New York Times best-seller list for 29 weeks in 1979.

Golenbock has since collaborated with several Yankees on their autobiographies, and has now returned to his motherlode with "George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built the Yankee Empire," about now-enfeebled Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

So, with all that time spent with the Yankees, you'd think Golenbock would have his material down cold. Instead, as CBS News Radio Correspondent Peter King found out, Golenbock merely shows why every author needs an editor. And what happens when he doesn't have one -- at least one who knows the subject matter.

King (full disclosure: a former colleague and current friend), who has logged many hours in and around ballparks during his career, was slated to interview Golenbock about his book. Then he read it and found it riddled with enough errors to have Golenbock sent down to the literary bush leagues for life. Among them, as King writes:

--On page 277, there was a reference to the 1981 White Sox and their General Manager Dave Dombrowski. That would have been amazing because in 1981, Dombrowski was just 23 and hadn’t been in baseball that long (his first GM job came with the Expos in 1988).
--On page 314, he mentions Florida Marlins owner "Bob Luria." Maybe he was thinking of ex-Giants owner Bob Lurie? The Marlins’ owner is actually Jeffrey Loria.
--On page 144, he had Billy Martin trying to get himself fired from Texas in July of 1974 so he could manage the Yankees. He was off by one year; it happened in 1975.
Perhaps the most amazing error of them all came on page 196 when he had the Yanks trading away relief pitcher Sparky Lyle in the spring of 1979. Here, Golenbock contradicts Lyle - and himself - since they co-wrote Lyle’s book "The Bronx Zoo." The last paragraph of that book is a post-script, saying that Lyle was traded away on November 11, 1978.

King called the flack working for the publisher, John Wiley & Sons to cancel the interview and express his dismay. Wiley has since owned up to the problems, as has Golenbock, who has also been roundly attacked by knowledgable fans on Amazon.com. Word is the errors will be corrected in the next printing. We'll see.

Of course, Golenbock is hardly the first non-fiction author to get facts wrong. It happens all the time. And that's the problem. Most publishers don't have the inclination or resources -- unlike magazines -- to do proper fact-checking, or any at all. They want you to pay 25 bucks to read nonfiction. After that, you're on your own.

But it didn't have to be this way. Any editor with even an adequate knowledge of baseball would have easily been able to flag these errors before the book went to press. It's bad enough Golenbock was so consistent in his sloppiness. However, Wiley compounded Golenbock's errors by letting them go unchallenged.

Sadly, this not an isolated incident for Wiley. It also publishes the Frommer's travel guides. As I wrote in 2007, my experience using their 2008 guide to Walt Disney World was an experience in frustration, as it was often badly outdated or just plain wrong.

Sound familiar?

One Tough Assignment: Writing About Why You'll Soon Be Out of A Job

Portfolio Shutting Down; Blogger Jeff Bercovici Serves Up His Own Bad News

The whispers got rather loud real fast about the demise of Conde Nast Portfolio this morning on Peter Kafka's All Things Digital blog.

And now it's official.

Portfolio media blogger Jeff Bercovici confirmed to the world at large that, indeed, he and a bunch of others will soon be out of a job.

Too bad. Portfolio was a grand experiment that debuted in a perfect storm of the print media business tanking, while the recession pretty much took care of what advertising was left.

Portfolio was also a victim of its own ambitions. It paid to play to offer up quality articles -- and pay dearly, at that.

For example, Michael Lewis was rumored to have been paid a maharajah-esque sum of five bucks a word for an article in the December issue fittingly titled The End, about the passing of an era on Wall Street.

And you wondered why Conde Nast couldn't make the numbers add up for Portfolio. And now 85 people are out of a job.

Not that Lewis is to blame for the magazine being shuttered. But when Conde Nast is laying off receptionists to help its sagging bottom line, those are luxuries -- along with the endless supply of town cars and business-class junkets -- that could be done without.

Portfolio will be missed, and not just as a source of cannon fodder for Gawker.

Winning a Pulitzer Prize Is Great, But.....

It Gets Harder to Celebrate

Robert Smith on NPR's Morning Edition had a good piece this morning on the sobering reality behind this year's Pulitzer Prizes.

That includes the story of Alexandra Berzon, the winner of the public-service prize. Her paper, the scrappy Las Vegas Sun, has now shrunk to eight pages as part of a supplement inside the larger Review-Journal, which graciously acknowledged Berzon's award in an editorial.

Smith also cites Paul Giblin, who shared the award in the local-reporting category. He couldn't take part in the requisite newsroom celebration at the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix because he had been laid off. That fact was conveniently omitted by editor Chris Coppola in his column about the award (he merely says Giblin now works for the Arizona Guardian online news service).

Coppola does point out, however, that the Tribune, which had already cut its frequency to four days a week, while eliminating circulation in several cities, will now go down to three days a week next month.

That will do nothing to help the Tribune in pursuit of another Pulitzer. But that's not what newspapers should be focused on nowadays, in any event.

First, just find a way to survive to publish another day. Worry about the rest later, Pulitzers included.

Massive Loss By NY Times Co. Could Force Boston Globe Unions to Cave

Dreary 1Q Numbers Accentuated by Ad Plunge in New England

Everyone expected the first-quarter results for The New York Times Co. to be bad. But not this bad.

It lost $74.5 million or 52 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting a loss of no more than 6 cents a share. Ouch.

But that's what happens when ad revenue for all your newspapers falls 28.4 percent. It was even worse at the Times' New England Media Group, where ads plunged 31.6 percent.

That will make today's negotiations between the Boston Newspaper Guild and the Times even more interesting, as the company seeks to wring $20 million of concessions from the unions, who are faced with a threat of the Globe being shuttered.

The Times has already said the Globe is on track to lose $85 million this year. If so, the unions may have little choice but to swallow hard and cough up lots of givebacks, including pension contributions, lifetime job security and 401k matches.

Unions always want to have some leverage when dealing with management. But with this earnings report, leverage has left the building. Left in its place is some guy from finance holding a plug that he looks too eager to pull.

Checkmate.

Newspaper Doomsayer at It Again With Magazines

But Sloppy Editing Hurts Credibility of Douglas McIntyre, 24/7 WallStreet

Last month, a list of the ten newspapers that will either fold or go digital from a Web site called 24/7 Wall Street was picked up by Time.com and wound up getting a lot more attention than it probably deserved.

It was easy to quibble with at least half of the picks, especially the New York Daily News, whose demise, author Douglas McIntyre opined, was predicated on the fact that it wasn't owned by a big corporation, and based on the performance of other dailies, could lose $70 million this year.

First off, have you seen the performance of newspaper companies lately, at least those that haven't been delisted by the NYSE and NASDAQ? Not being one is actually a good thing.

Further, McIntyre's extrapolating about the News' finances are a reach, to put it charitably. And if the News was in such dire straits, why would it be spending tens of millions of dollars on new color presses?

Anywhoo, that was then. Now McIntyre is back with another list. This one is devoted to the "Twelve Major Brands That Will Disappear" by the end of 2010. Two come from the media, Esquire and Architectural Digest,

In Esquire's case, it's the 97-pound weakling in a crowded category that's already taken a beating. AD is the grandmama of shelter magazines. But it's way-upscale ambitions are out of step at a time when millions of homes are being foreclosed on and its ad pages -- or lack thereof -- reflect that.

McIntyre's analysis is a bit more spot on this time around. But it's marred throughout by having been pushed out without being proofread. The final entry alone, which basically predicts United Airlines will need a merger partner, has at least 10 spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. And that's just one of 12 entries.

That's why there are editors. McIntyre could sure use one. You can't stand behind your reasoning if it's not coherent in the first place.

No Escaping Cost-Cutting at New York Times

And No Escapes Section Either (Not to Mention Suburban Sunday Weeklies)

The rumors bore out, and The New York Times is thinning out some of its offerings, offing the Escapes section that appears on Friday, along with the regional sections for Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York City.
Escapes will be dispatched to oblivion as of May 1, with some of its offerings melded into the Weekend section. So maybe we'll still get to read about the particulars of vacation homes, weekend getaways and what it's like to live in some idyllic town far away from you. It was usually a pretty good read and I'll be sorry to see it go.
Same goes for the regional sections. Even though they had been watered down the last couple of years by sharing content across some of the titles, they still served a purpose, especially in Westchester -- my neck of the woods.
The local paper, The Journal-News, is so wanting as a publication that the Times was frequently able to offer stories the J-N never even thought of. Ironically, several of the section's freelancers were J-N alumni who had wrested themselves from that vortex of mediocrity.
And that is another part of this story. These sections were written almost entirely by freelancers who now have many fewer outlets for their work in the Times. Indeed, cutting the freelance budget will likely save millions.
There will be a zoned page in a new regional section that will debut May 24. But that doesn't leave room for much. Nor does it likely leave room for restaurant reviews, much needed as most of what passes for reviews in the J-N tend to be fawning rather than authoritative.
But what's more troubling is these and other cuts announced today may be yet another harbinger of more troubling cuts to come. Judging by this memo from Bill Keller, another day of reckoning may be at hand -- and soon.

MLB Network Squanders Chance To Be Relevant

Fledgling Baseball Channel Whiffs in Initial Coverage of Death of Legendary Phillies Broadcaster Harry Kalas

The new MLB Network wants to be all things baseball. After all, that's the only reason for its existence.
Today, it proved it's still working out the finer points of that business model.
This afternoon brought word of the sudden passing of Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, who collapsed as he prepared for the Phillies-Nationals game in Washington later in the day. Kalas, a Hall of Fame broadcaster, had become as identified with the Phillies as any player, and his fame was known well beyond Philadelphia.
MLB broke in to a taped program called "Cathedrals of the Game" for a brief update from its main anchor, Matt Vasgersian and then quickly returned to the program, which was inexplicably cued up from where it picked up after the last commercial break.
The rub: the network was showing a feed of the Phillies-Nationals game at 3 p.m. ET, just minutes away. So, by re-racking the program they jump in late. But just as baffling, they use the feed from the Nationals broadcast, rather than the Phillies.
True, Nationals announcers Bob Carpenter and Rob Dibble said all the right things about Kalas. But the only right call was to switch gears and go to the Phillies cast -- and hear from Tom McCarthy and Chris Wheeler reflect on their departed colleague.
Also left unanswered is why MLB Network only has in-studio programming at night with its complement of analysts when there were four games being played during the day Monday, including the one it was showing.
Clearly, the network has to be more nimble for when events dictate, especially when ESPN is waiting to clean your clock. ESPN News for a time simulcast its Philadelphia radio affiliate, as listeners called in with their heartfelt thoughts about losing Kalas.
MLB Network doesn't have that luxury, but it does have the ability to react sooner than later, especially with the broadcast resources of all teams available to it.
Fans who went to the network thinking it would be a go-to source of information deserved better.
So did Harry Kalas.

Harry Kalas Dead At 73

"We Lost Our Voice Today"





"Struck him out! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions of baseball!"

There were many memorable calls in the storied career of Harry Kalas. That he finally got to call a World Series victory for his beloved Philadelphia Phillies last year must have been one he treasured.

Kalas died this afternoon after he collapsed in the press box at Nationals Stadium in Washington.
He was 73.
It's no accident that he's in Baseball's Hall of Fame. You knew the voice. That his unmistakable baritone will no longer be telling Phillies Nation about the latest exploits of Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels is stunning, no matter who you root for.
Given that he was with the team since 1971, at least two generations of fans meant following the Phils meant listening to Kalas.
The games will go on. They just won't sound the same.

Merkin Op-Ed Shows Why Public Editors Matter More Than Ever

Clark Hoyt Slams Times Op-Ed Page for Less-than-Full Disclosure on Madoff Piece

Public Editor. Readers' Representative. Ombudsman.

Whatever the title, it's one that has been gradually disappearing from newspapers, as a convenient way to cost-cut.

And that the membership rolls of the Organization of Newspaper Ombudsmen continues to shrink cannot be a good thing, as yesterday's column by New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (above) showed us.

Hoyt excoriated the Op-Ed editors for a March 21 piece by frequent Times contributor Daphne Merkin about the Bernard Madoff scandal. The fifth paragraph begins:

"What Mr. Madoff brought to the table, I think, was a sense of mishpocha, of being part of an extended family, but one you carefully chose rather than being arbitrarily born into," and then parenthetically mentions: (I did not know Mr. Madoff nor did I invest with his firm, but have a sibling who did business with him.)"

And the winner for understatement of the year is....

As Hoyt and other readers have pointed out, that sibling is none other than Ezra Merkin, a prominent money man who funneled more than $2 billion of his clients' money to Madoff and collected $470 million in fees. Merkin has not been charged with any crime, but is being sued by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for civil fraud.

And yet Daphne Merkin -- with the approval of her editors -- was allowed to essentially skip past that mess. While what she wrote is true, Hoyt notes, it's "about as forthcoming as saying that Milton Eisenhower had a sibling in the United States Army in World War II."
The wording was meekly defended by Op-Ed editor David Shipley, who had sought out Merkin for the piece. Merkin obviously -- and perhaps correctly -- didn't want it to be about her brother. Still, you can't ignore the $2 billion gorilla in the room. And that's essentially what the Times did, and which Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal essentially admitted to Hoyt was an error.

At a time when newspapers are teetering on the brink of oblivion, the last think they can risk is their credibility. They need to be held accountable, just like they do to the public officials and scoundrels who run or ruin our lives.

Ombudsmen can only make newspapers better. And when more readers and advertisers are deciding whether to abandon them for good, newspapers need to be at their best. The Clark Hoyts of this world are the best insurance for achieving that goal.