National - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:00 - 0 Comments
The National Section’s Editorial Philosophy Explained
Yesterday, I wrote a post in which I ripped into a Washington Square News column that I believed (and still believe) was sloppy, poorly-reasoned, and downright corrosive to serious discussion of the issues. My response triggered something of a shitstorm in the comments, with several people accusing me of bias, shoddy journalism, dishonesty and a fanatical devotion to Barack Obama.
Let’s be clear: I stand by every word of my post, the occasional typo excluded. I got all my facts straight, I believe my reasoning was solid, and, most importantly, everything I wrote was fully consistent with the ethical standards I would expect of any other journalist.
That last point is the most contentious one–in fact, it seems every time I post something anyone disagrees with, I end up having to reiterate those standards. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s starting to get tired of it. So in the interest of not getting dragged into the same argument ad nauseam, here’s an overview of the standards I use when writing and editing for the National section.
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Opinion - Monday, September 8, 2008 0:00 - 8 Comments
Time for Another Blogger Ethics Panel
We here at NYU Local tend to get really excited about New Media, and rightfully so – New Media is what this whole enterprise is all about. It’s about a total commitment to exploring the new world of possibilities for journalism that a web-based platform opens up. That leads us in a dramatically different direction than, say, NYTimes.com, which mostly exists to aggregate content that goes into the print version. Sure, they have some pretty good blogs (I’m a big fan of the Freakonomics blog) and some video, comments, and other things, but if you look at the articles that make up the bulk of the site, they’re written in the same style that’s served the Gray Lady since time immemorial.
That’s not New Media, at least not as we see it here – it’s Old Media that you can look at on your iPhone. What we do here is centered around the basic assumption that it’s not just the medium that’s evolved, but the rules underlying what journalists do. And we’re at an interesting point in history where everyone is trying to figure out what the hell that means.
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