Editor's Notes at EditorsNotes.com

Monday, October 11, 2004

NYT, WaPo Criticize Their Critics


Howard Kurtz, WaPo:

Political passions are running high these days, and plenty of media people are feeling under siege. In an era of partisan Web sites and attack e-mails, what might once have been dismissed as a minor misjudgment or harmless joke becomes, in the eyes of some critics, a capital offense.

Daniel Okrent, NYT:

This piece turned out to be more of a rant than I intended, but given the vicious nature of some of the attacks levied against certain reporters, I wasn't inclined to be temperate. [...]

But before I turn over the podium, I do want you to know just how debased the level of discourse has become. When a reporter receives an e-mail message that says, "I hope your kid gets his head blown off in a Republican war," a limit has been passed.

[...] Maybe the bloggers who encourage their readers to send this sort of thing to The Times might want to ask them instead to say it in public. I don't think they'd dare.