Okrent--the Ethical Minder of the New York Times

Daniel Okrent, on with Tweety last night had this to say on his job description with the Times:

My role is to criticize whatever I find in “The Times” that merits criticism for violations of ethical standards, for not coming up to levels of journalistic practice that the paper ought to be engaged in. And I get to do it in the pages of the paper. I write a column every other week. It doesn‘t get edited by anybody at the paper. And I‘m free to say what I wish to say about what the paper has done.

Oh really? Remember Atrios writing about this one a while back? Ethical standards indeed.

He also had some not-so-interesting things to say about the paper's liberal bent.

But over the course of a long campaign, I could show you as much counterevidence to the support of one candidate as I could to the other. On the other hand, I do think that “The Times,” and I am speaking only for myself and not for “The Times”—I have to say that—does on some social issues, particularly, if not hue to a liberal line, I think that there is sort of a tendency to support certain positions that are, I think, you know, indicative to the nature of the journalistic class of the city of New York and Washington, where most of the journalists live. And that gets into the paper on a regular basis.

Is he reading the same paper I am (Miller, Bumiller, et al.)?

Otherwise, typical Tweety blather.