It has been announced that the New York Times public editor aka ombudsman Margaret Sullivan will be moving over to the Washington Post. So does that mean the Post is now lifting its three year old decree against continuing the post of ombudsman? Nope. Sullivan is going to become a media columnist which makes one wonder if she will be supplanting Erik Wemple who in the same role is confined mainly to the digital edition.
However, rather than speculate on Wemple's fate, let us take a Newsbusters trip down Margaret Sullivan memory lane in her role as the Times public editor in which she often acted as excuse editor. First memory to be reviewed will be from last June when Clay Waters noted her fretting over the Times coverage of Hillary's email problems that was perhaps a bit too thorough for liberal sensibilities:
On Monday morning, New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, facing an outcry from her paper's liberal readership, fretted over its coverage of the investigation into Hillary Clinton sending private emails containing classified material. The print edition sent a similar message to Republicans who might dare to use the issue against Clinton on the road to the White House: Ease off. Willie Horton and the "war on women" trope also make appearances as further warning of the alleged perils of Republican overreach.
We now go from a Margaret Sullivan fret to a Ferguson mea culpa last March which was also noticed by Waters:
New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan on Monday made a mea culpa for her past criticism of Times reporting on the racially-charged Ferguson case. In a post last August, Sullivan called out a Times lead story for including the views of anonymous sources who supported police officer Darren Wilson's account of the shooting of Michael Brown, a view in which Brown did not have his hands up in surrender but had lunged at Wilson. Sullivan called the quoting of those pro-Wilson anonymous "ghost" sources "dubious equivalency" on the level of (horrors!) conservatives who deny climate change.
Scott Whitlock caught Sullivan admitting in June 2014 that the New York Times was "somewhat late" in covering the IRS scandal:
The New York Times's public editor on Friday responded to criticism about the paper's coverage of the IRS scandal, admitting: "The Times was somewhat late in beginning to cover the latest development about the lost emails." An analysis by the Media Research Center's Jeffrey Meyer on Thursday found that "in the past 6 months (183 days), the New York Times has published only 13 news items on the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups."
On the upside for Sullivan was her criticism of the Times for downplaying a March for Life in January 2014 as relayed to us by Tim Graham:
Kudos to New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan for asking why the Times couldn’t provide much coverage of Wednesday’s March for Life. Hundreds, if not thousands of New Yorkers were there, so “Was this local participation, or the event itself, worthy of a news story in the paper of record? Apparently not.”
Finally, to end on another upbeat note, the late great Noel Sheppard discovered Sullivan making the astounding observation that the sky is blue:
NewsBusters readers certainly don't have to be told that the New York Times has a liberal bias, but when the paper's public editor admits it on national television, one has to take notice.
With that in mind, grab some peanuts, popcorn, or Cracker Jacks and take a gander at Margaret Sullivan on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday marvelously telling us what we already know (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Although Margaret Sullivan will not continue as public editor/ombudsman at the Washington Post, fear not. Newsbusters will remain in its role as the outside ombudsman for that newspaper as its Eye of Sauron stays firmly focused upon Sullivan & Co. in Medialand.
