Why Won't New York Times Columnists Attack Each Other By Name? Answer: There's No Good Reason
November 15, 2007 -- 2:43 PM EST // //
Updated below with a letter to me from former Times columnist Syd Schanberg.
For days now people have been blogging about the ongoing battle unfolding among Paul Krugman, David Brooks and Bob Herbert on the New York Times Op ed page. The columnists have been duking it out over whether Ronald Reagan consciously race-baited when he gave an infamous 1980 speech supporting states' rights just outside the town where three civil rights workers were murdered a generation ago.
As many have pointed out, none of these columnists has even once mentioned his colleagues by name. Some have speculated that this is in deference to some sort of Times policy or unspoken tradition. The problem is that this reticence prevents the columnists from engaging each other's arguments as directly as possible, because so doing would give away the identity of the target.
This got me wondering: Why don't these columnists address each other? Is there a real reason for it? Well, as best as I can determine, there isn't any such reason. In fact, the columnists probably could start naming each other by name tomorrow and nothing would happen.
First I asked Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis if there's any particular policy in place that forbids this. After checking she said that there was no such policy.
Next stop: Susan Tifft, the co-author of a well-known history of the paper called The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times. She told me that she couldn't recall any particular episode where columnists clashed with one another or any guidelines against it ever getting laid down, either publicly or privately. She did, however, point to one semi-relevant episode from Times history.
In 1985, then publisher Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger fired Sydney Schanberg, the NYT's metropolitan affairs columnist, after he accused the paper of being "venal" in one of his many columns on Westway, a proposed Manhattan highway project.This isn't a perfect parallel. The columnist was sacked for attacking the whole institution, not a fellow writer. That said, this was a high-profile episode, and may have helped produce the current reluctance to targeting each other by name. More puzzling is a second episode Tifft pointed to. From her email to me:
In the spring of 1991, NYT columnist Anna Quindlen wrote a Sunday op-ed column condemning a profile that had run in the paper of the alleged victim in the William Kennedy Smith rape case. The profile not only named the victim -- Patricia Bowman -- but it included anonymous pejorative quotes and other negative information that made it appear she had "deserved it." Reporters at the paper were up in arms about the profile because of its smeary tone -- and because it violated the Times's convention of not naming rape victims.So in this case the current Times publisher encouraged one of the paper's columnists after she directly faulted employees at the paper responsible for its news coverage.The day after Quinlen's column appeared, [current Times publisher] Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. appeared in the newsroom, put his arm around her shoulder and said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, "That was a good column yesterday."
So what we know now is that there's no policy at The Times preventing columnists from naming each other. There's precedent for columnists faulting other Times employees very directly. So why don't the columnists name each other? I put in a call to Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal to see if he could shed any light on this, and if he gets back to me I'll let you know.
For now, though, I submit that they can do this -- and that if they did, nothing would happen except that the Op ed page would get a heck of a lot more lively.
I nominate Paul Krugman. Go for it, professor. It's long overdue.
Update: Syd Schanberg writes me a corrective letter:
Dear Greg,In your Nov. 15 column examining the etiquette guidelines for New York Times columnists who comment on the work of other Times reporters or columnists, you sought comment from Susan Tifft, co-author with her husband, Alex Jones, of a history of the paper. titled "The Trust: "The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times."
Her comment for your column said, erroneously: "In 1985, then publisher Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger fired Sydney Schanberg the NYT's metropolitan affairs columnist, after he accused the paper of being 'venal' in one of his many columns on Westway, a proposed Manhattan highway project."
I never called The New York Times "venal" in my Westway columns -- or anywhere else. Here's what I did do: In two of roughly 25 Westway columns I wrote over a four-year span, I sharply criticized the New York press as a whole for failing to provide serious, credible coverage of Westway. I didn't mention The Times by name, though, in fairness, any Times reader would have known that I was including my own paper, not least because The Times' editorial page was an enthusiastic Westway supporter.
Also, Westway was hardly just a "highway project," as Ms. Tifft described it, but more like a $4-billion-plus real estate boondoggle that was eventually blocked by a Federal judge who,among other findings, said the project's backers had committed "perjury" in his courtroom. (All my Op-ed columns on Westway can be easily examined on the Times' website, by entering "Sydney H. Schanberg,Westway" in the search box on the home page.}
Ms. TIfft also erred in saying I was fired. Here's what actually happened: My column -- called "New York" -- was abruptly discontinued after a July 27,1985 piece headlined "Cajun Flies and Westway" (one of the two columns in which I criticized the city's newspapers). Afterward, I was asked and urged by the publisher to take another position on the paper, as the roving staff correspondent for the Sunday magazine. I declined.
Perhaps Ms. Tifft's errors were inadvertent. I do hope they are not representative of her reporting for her book about The Times.
Sincerely, Syd Schanberg
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-- Greg Sargent
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