Here’s some of what you learned if you read Editor & Publisher‘s article today on the New York Times’ decision to replace William Safire with John Tierney on its op-ed page:
— Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. finds Tierney “a smart reporter and innovative thinker.”
— Tierney plans to “come up with columns that surprise readers and entertain them at the same time.”
— Tierney “has a distinctive voice and he has been a very good columnist and is an interesting kind of thinker,” according to Times editorial page editor Gail Collins.
— Tierney is “a fine reporter with a definite libertarian streak and a good sense of humor,” says William Safire, whose retirement created the opening.
— “I’m a huge fan of Bill’s, and I would love to write a column as good as his,” responds Tierney, who calls Safire “irreplaceable.”
(There’s a lotta love bouncing around the legendarily moody and brooding newsroom of the Times, it seems.)
Here’s some of what you didn’t learn, unless you read our December 1, 2004 post on Tierney’s body of work:
— Tierney “has a tendency to support his point of view using sources with a clear ideological or special interest agenda, without properly identifying them.”
— Tierney has repeatedly selectively cited sources, cherry-picking studies that support his view, even if they contradict the wider body of evidence.
— In his Times pieces, Tierney has ignored major sides of a debate in his desire to adopt a contrarian position, often “flouting basic journalistic norms whose observance might weaken his case.”
We’re not saying E&P should have called us to round out its piece on Tierney’s appointment — but it should have called someone. E&P has in the past year or so made impressive strides away from the kind of trade magazine journalism that relies too heavily on stapled-together press releases. It’s time it extends its new inquisitiveness to personnel announcements.
Which is not to say that we’re calling for E&P (or anyone else) to resort to that hoary cop-out, false equivalence — “Sulzberger calls Tierney a giant among dwarfs, CJR Daily says he’s actually 5’3”— but there are plenty of people out there who have been made uneasy by Tierney’s grab-bag of journalistic shortcuts.
It would have been nice if E&P had bothered to put down the Times’ directory and given some of them a call.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.