How can cutbacks not be mentioned in NYT analysis of Cronkite debacle?

Wait, five editors are reading one story?

Where do I sign up to work at a place like that?

 

I worked at a place where most stories would get three reads. Of course, the same place right now would probably want me to just post it directly to the web.

 

According to Wikipedia, "Stanley is close friends with fellow Times employees Jill Abramson and Maureen Dowd. Both are mentioned prominently in the New York Magazine article "The Redhead and the Gray Lady," by Ariel Levy."

And in that article . . . "A common newsroom perception is that Dowd’s clique gets special treatment because its members use their charm instrumentally—an occupational hazard for successful women that runs roughly proportional to their level of physical attractiveness. And then there is their extremely close proximity to Jill Abramson. “When I became managing editor, I gave a short speech: My mother told me when I was going off to summer camp, ‘You just need one friend and you’ll be okay,” says Abramson. “At work, Maureen is that one friend.”

I think we need to rewrite that tired line:

"They have to work half as hard to get twice the credit and never are held accountable for anything."

 

The good boy/girl NYC society bullshit is going to be the death of them. That story would be embarrassing for a weekly shopper.

 

Not just that five editors read her story and missed things, but this was glaring to me:

For all her skills as a critic, Stanley was the cause of so many corrections in 2005 that she was assigned a single copy editor responsible for checking her facts. Her error rate dropped precipitously and stayed down after the editor was promoted and the arrangement was discontinued. Until the Cronkite errors, she was not even in the top 20 among reporters and editors most responsible for corrections this year. Now, she has jumped to No. 4 and will again get special editing attention.


She is such a fuck-up with facts the NYT has a special editor assigned to her? That's terrible.

I don't care how good a writer may be with "intellectual heft" of a subject. If you can't get basic facts correct and are one of the most prolific in errors, something needs to be changed.

 

The most telling lines in that article was Cronkite's kid e-mailed the paper, before his dad died, and told them to be careful because CBS had found errors in its own advance work on Cronkite's obit, and that didn't happen at the Times.
The other is that the piece was written nearly a month in advance.

 

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cbs/katie_couric_swipes_the_nytimes_alessandra_stanley_122630.asp

Katie Couric weighed in on the Times article as well. Pretty funny.

 

Had Frank Reynolds been alive, he'd have eaten her for lunch.

 

To answer the question posed in the title, it's because five people edited the story.

 

Obits for significant figures on the regional, national and world scene often -- usually, in fact -- are written up months in advance at the big metros.

Obits for people who are old or infirm, in fact, may be done years in advance, with modifications made and details changed or updated as needed when the person actually passes away.

 

Probably fewer than used to be for The Times.

 

by the way, she has sucked for a loooooong time. :