The worst job in journalism, continued
: I just got a nice email from Dan Okrent, the New York Times’ new public editor (read: ombudsman) in response to my suggestions here about how to make his job, the worst in journalism, at least more entertaining. Well, he’s not going to do exactly what I suggest (he never would).
But note this: He reads weblogs. That’s how he saw what I’d said. That’s why he responded.
He says he’s “counting… on the blogworld to keep me on my woulda/coulda/shoulda toes.”
An auspicious start, eh?
I said back to Dan that though I do, in fact, believe he has the worst job in journalism:
Andrew Sullivan to the right of him,
Barbra Streisand to the left of him,
Timesmen in front of him
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with snark and screed,
Boldly, he wrote and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the public editor
But I told him that I’m glad he’s doing this. It is an important job. I love the Times and I am tired of ceaseless Times-bashing for sport on the one hand and the opaqueness of the Times on the other hand. The mere fact that Okrent is now there will, I hope, do a good deal to disarm both armies and bring the discussion back to what is, in fact, the difficult business of trying to get it right. Dan is a good and smart man. Give him a chance. He’s beginning by listening. Can’t ask for better than that.
