Gray Lady Down by William McGowan Read Free Book Online

number of columnists on the inside pages; by relaxing or ignoring rules that had barred television, film, theater and literary critics from injecting their politics into reviews; by increasing the amount of space devoted to news analysis and other forms of explanatory journalism; and by expanding the importance of popular culture in the news mix.
    Up until well into the 1960s the Times had had very few columnists; by the early 2000s there were four dozen, scattered throughout the paper. In late 2009, there were eighteen “cultural critics” alone, courtesy of the expanded coverage of popular culture. Had someone like Abe Rosenthal been there to keep a weather eye out for critics using their perch to introduce political or social commentary into what were supposed to be “straight” reviews, the boost in the number of critics and “inside” columnists
would not have been such a problem. But the new Timesmen and Timeswomen were encouraged to write with “voice.” Given the ideological proclivities of the people hired by Sulzberger, that meant a liberal voice as well as political posturing.
    And so, writing about Goodnight and Good Luck in his 2006 Oscar predictions column, David Carr called the film “A well crafted look at a time in American history when anything less than complete fealty to the republic was seen as treason, which sounds familiar to some movie goers.” In a review of Sophie Stoll (2006), a World War II German period film about the fate of civil liberties under the Nazis, Stephen Holden said, “It raises an unspoken question: could it happen here?” Holden also hailed Oliver Stone’s documentary about Hugo Chavez (2010) for depicting the anti-American Venezuelan dictator as “a rough-hewn but good-hearted man of the people whose bullheaded determination is softened by a sense of humor.” The television critic Anita Gates lauded a British show called Cracker for providing “the punch of confirmation that much of the rest of the world may indeed despise the United States for what the Bush administration calls the war on terror.” The choreographer Bill T. Jones’ performance piece Blind Date (2005) was praised by Ginia Bellafante for questioning “the expediency of war,” for reflecting on “limited opportunities for the urban poor,” and for remarking on “the centrality of sexual moralism to the Republican agenda.”
    The biggest erosion of the wall between news and opinion, however, came in the elevation of Howell Raines to the position of executive editor in 2001. The Times now practically dropped the pretense of objective reporting altogether, opting for crusading zeal and advocacy on a level heretofore unseen in the paper. Besides bringing dogmatic political opinions to the job, Raines blurred the line between news and opinion by putting editorial department staff into key newsroom positions. For example, he made the columnist Frank Rich an associate editor, with responsibilities for cultural coverage. Rich had been moved from the op-ed page to the Sunday Arts section, then back to the op-ed page on Sundays with a much bigger platform—usually at least half a
page. What the new position meant was that Rich was not only opining on various subjects linking culture and politics, but also determining how the Times was covering arts and culture.
    Robert Samuelson of Newsweek commented on the changes that came to the Times with Howell Raines’ promotion:
    Every editor and reporter holds private views. The difference is that Raines’ opinions are now highly public. His [editorial page] was pro choice, pro gun control, and pro campaign finance reform.... Does anyone believe that, in his new job, Raines will instantly purge himself of these and other views? And because they are so public, Raines’ positions compromise the Times’ ability to act and appear fair-minded. Many critics already believe that the news columns of the Times are animated—and distorted—by the same values as its