Margaret Sullivan

[Commentary] Call it the revenge of the reporters over the pundits. Feb 28 was a low point for “the media” — if such a multi-headed beast can be described in those two words — as cable-news talking heads gushed over President Trump’s address to Congress. But as if to say that not all media are created equal, along came two blockbuster stories from two longtime rival newspapers.

First, on March 1, with an 8:01 news alert, the New York Times dropped its triple-byline blockbuster: that the Obama administration had scattered a trail of bread crumbs, evidently so that contacts between Trump’s associates and the Russians would not be lost to a coverup by the new administration. Then, with a 9:04 p.m. news alert, The Washington Post published a shocker on the same general subject: that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had met with the Russian ambassador to the United States twice and failed to disclose that during his Senate confirmation hearings. Because of dogged reporting, and to some extent on intelligence-community leaks that Trump has found so outrageous, both stories hit hard.

[Commentary] With cries of “fake news” coming from all sides, schools are stepping up — teaching media literacy to help students distinguish rumor from fact, hoax from reality. As President Trump’s bizarre suggestion of a recent terrorist attack in Sweden proved recently, he needs a crash course. We’re here to help.
1. Compare and contrast information sources.
2. Don’t share without verifying.
3. If you put out misinformation, correct it quickly.
4. Be skeptical.
5. Use critical thinking

[Commentary] With Donald Trump’s Presidency at hand, the news-media landscape is unlike anything we’ve seen before. What can we expect in the months ahead? With the help of some expert observers, here are a few:
1. Unprecedented conflict between the administration and the media.
2. Journalism that follows the money — but may not hit home.
3. The weakening of journalism in the heartland.
4. More pressure than ever on dominant news organizations.

[Commentary] On Nov 21, some of the biggest names in TV news trooped into Trump Tower for an off-the-record meeting with the president-elect. The meeting was a huge success — for President-elect Donald Trump. The result for Trump: He once again was able to use the media as his favorite foil. Having a whipping boy is more important than ever now that the election is over and there is no Democratic opponent to malign at every turn.

The New York Times played it right. Despite a tweet attack from the president-elect, editors refused to go the off-the-record route with President-elect Trump, which was his preference, for obvious reasons — because he wanted again to control the story. Journalists, and their corporate bosses, shouldn’t allow themselves to be used as props in Trump’s never-ending theater.

What really makes America great? It’s the meaning of 45 words found in the Bill of Rights: The First Amendment. Donald Trump’s presidency is very likely to threaten those First Amendment rights. If they are damaged or removed, we’ll be like a lot of unenviable places.

“Freedom of speech is a rare thing, after all. It’s one of the big differences between the United States and a place like Cuba,” wrote John Daniel Davidson last March in the Federalist. “Cuba has no freedom of the press — or rule of law. Libel is whatever the regime says it is.” These are rights that allow us to march in the streets, to worship freely, to publish tough stories about the government.

[Commentary] When The Times launched its India Ink blog in September 2011, it noted that this was the paper’s “first-ever country-specific site for news, information, culture and conversation.” Now it’s gone.

These days, that kind of specificity is no longer the way The Times wants to direct its resources -- at least not in the form of a blog, and all that usually comes with it: embedded content, reverse-chronological order, curation of other source material and a personal or conversational tone.

“We want to continue this kind of journalism without the manufactured shell of a blog, with its constant pressure to fill it up,” said Ian Fisher, an assistant managing editor. That will happen, he said, through blog-style pieces that crop up when needed.

The Times recently decided to end The Lede, a pioneering effort that aggregated news content on major breaking stories. That, he said, “was getting increasingly incoherent” in its purpose and was “losing its value.” It was also taking a lot of staff hours to keep it going.

Andrew Beaujon of Poynter.org reported that the closing of The Lede was part of a bigger strategy that will end about half of The Times’s blogs. Fisher went a step further saying that The Times already has ended or merged about half of the 60 or so blogs that it had at the high point in 2012, and there may be about another 10 to go, although nothing is on the chopping block at this moment.

My take is this: For dedicated readers of individual blogs, there is no doubt a loss in this move. When you’re very interested in a single topic, it’s great to have a place that constantly aggregates news and commentary, adds new information and, in general, speaks to your passion.

[Commentary] Should a speedy Internet be available to everyone equally or are some users, in Orwell’s terms, “more equal than others”? Should there be “haves” and “have-nots” on the Internet, with the winners being large corporate or commercial users, as opposed to small businesses or regular people?

That’s the essence of the debate behind the high-stakes subject of “net neutrality,” which the Federal Communications Commission voted on recently.

“I’ve long become accustomed to news articles as well as editorials in the Times asserting that black is white or white is black, but for you to insist that the actions of the FCC will protect and enhance Internet neutrality is way over the top,” wrote one reader, William Edwards. And another, Robert Ofsevit, wrote a detailed critique, comparing the headline in The Times, “FCC Vote Paves the Way for New Open Internet Rules” unfavorably with a more direct headline on a Reuters story that ran on Huffington Post: “FCC Votes for Plan to Kill Net Neutrality.”

He wrote: “The writer denigrates and marginalizes ‘some opponents’ of Chairman Wheeler’s plan, and “net neutrality purists” who view the plan as killing net neutrality. In fact, these are not fringe views held only by ‘purists.’” My take: I’m with the critics on this one. While I’m no expert, I don’t think the issues here really are all that muddy. Maybe this makes me a purist, but as I see it, this FCC vote was a clear strike against the commonly understood idea of net neutrality, and The Times should have written and presented it that way.

[Commentary] The New York Times published an article about an Arab citizen of Israel -- a 23-year-old journalist and Palestinian rights advocate -- who was detained by Israeli authorities.

The man, Majd Kayyal, was initially not allowed a lawyer, and he was interrogated for five days on suspicion that he was being recruited by a “hostile organization” after he visited Lebanon. He was released but ordered to be kept under house arrest.

The Times article mentions a court-imposed gag order that was lifted. What it doesn’t mention is that The Times, too, is subject to such gag orders.

According to its bureau chief in Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren, that is true. The Times is “indeed, bound by gag orders,” Rudoren said. She said that the situation is analogous to abiding by traffic rules or any other laws of the land, and that two of her predecessors in the bureau chief position affirmed to her that The Times has been subject to gag orders in the past.

In the case of article about Kayyal, Rudoren said, “We probably would have written a modest story or brief about this arrest earlier if there had not been a gag order.”

Waiting a day or two until the gag order was lifted may have done no great harm. Still, I find it troubling that The Times is in the position of waiting for government clearance before deciding to publish.

If the law makes that situation unavoidable, a little transparency would go a long way. Either in a sentence within an article or a short editor’s note, The Times can, and should, tell its readers what’s going on.

[Sullivan is the fifth public editor appointed by The New York Times.]