Clark Hoyt, the New York Times' public editor, does it in a gentlemanly fashion, but he manages to kick the stuffing out of Michael Gordon's front page article about Iran a week and a half ago and reveal a good deal about editor Bill Keller's attitudes than we've seen admitted to so far. Neither Gordon nor Keller seem very willing to accept criticism. Gordon's article, Hoyt writes, "had avoidable problems that helped lead to the eruption of criticism, a view vehemently disputed by Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, and Michael Gordon, who wrote the piece."
It seems to me that Bill Keller ought to be shown the door. Maybe it's unfair to ascribe all of the Times' problems over the past several years to his errors. But it would be reassuring to readers who are weary of the Times' knee-jerk establishmentarianism (and Gordon-like arrogance) if there just happened to be a shake-up in the newsroom.
NB: Worthy analysis of the Iran-EFP reports -- and reactions to them -- here. Specifically: "There's no mention of the fact that infra-red and radio triggered EFPs have been used in Northern ireland long before the current conflict or that there are reports that the design for EFPs used in Iraq was first seen in Ireland and spread globally by the IRA in trade for weapons and other bomb-making techniques." Read on...
