Public Editor Number One: The Collected Columns (with Reflections Reconsiderations and Even a Few Retractions) of the First Ombudsman of The New York Times

About this book

From December 2003 to May 2005 Daniel Okrent served as the New York Times first "Public Editor " a position created following the newspapers Jayson Blair scandal and the tumultuous reign and resignation of Howell Raines as Executive Editor. His mission: read the paper and provide his assessments without guidance from the paper itself and without fear or favor of how well it executed its responsibility to provide objective accurate and complete coverage of the world-at-large. Not an easy task but the New York Times chose the right writer for the job. Experienced wise and witty opinionated but never shrill he delivered. Okrent addressed subjects ranging from WMD coverage reporter self-promotion pulling for or piling on political candidates and corrections policy to the Tony Awards to the great delight and consternation of the papers readers and those in its own newsroom. Now collected amended and assessed by Okrent here are the complete columns of his rocky and illuminating eighteen months along with an evaluation of the entire experience; its ups and downs and what he thinks he got right and got wrong. This is a smart serious entertaining and longlasting look at what todays finest journalism does well and what it can do better.