Voices
garet Sullivan, responding to an
email inquiry over whether there
was “any type of check” on the
Gray Lady’s star columnists, investigated this matter, and the basic
answer is, not really, no:
“To explore the issue, I interviewed Andrew Rosenthal,
the editorial page editor, and
I surveyed the Op-Ed columnists, including Gail Collins,
who was the previous editorial
page editor. The response was
unanimous: Columnists have
almost inviolable free rein
on subject matter. But that
“almost” is important.
One recent exception was Mr.
Rosenthal’s directive that columnists not all write about the
Newtown school massacre within a day or two of one another.
Another constraint is still
more rare: deciding against publishing a column that has been
written. Mr. Rosenthal said he
had done it only once.”
“But for the most part,” Sullivan writes, “columnists write as
they see fit for as long as they are
granted the platform.” Of course,
some columnists would appreciate
editorial oversight. And it wouldn’t
be a bad thing if adult supervision
spread to other news organizations.
JASON
LINKINS
HUFFINGTON
03.03.13
Over at The Washington Post, Bob
Woodward has been riding high in
the sequester news cycle, dining
out on the fact that his book, The
Price Of Politics, captures the scene
in which then-White House Chief
Of Staff Jack Lew introduces the
concept of the sequester to Harry
Reid. This anthropological detail would be
a trivial piece of the
There’s
story were it not for
never going
the fact that the deto be any real
bate over the sequesaccountability
ter has devolved into a for just being
blame-game snit over
uniquely
“who started it.” It’s
wrong about
an argument with no
the important
winner, and none of
matters
it’s good for the counof the day.”
try, but it was good
for Woodward.
Whether it was born from the
desire to get another round of attention, or if he honestly thought
he had a point to make, Woodward’s next move was to get way,
way out over his skis. In a Friday column, he contended that
Obama, having asked for the sequester to be replaced with a deal
that added revenues, was “moving the goalposts.” In Woodward’s
odd construction, the sequester
itself was an “all-cuts” deal, ap-