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Yahoo!“Special Interests”
The Times has in the past used the term “special interests” to describe unions, environmentalists and even whole ethnic groups, and has used the word “pandering” when politicians take these groups’ concerns into account. We have typically not, however, used “pandering” to refer to politicians catering to the interests of corporations. The Times regrets that our use of such language may have given the impression that the interests of corporations are more important than those of citizens.
Environment
We apologize for so often framing our environmental coverage from a business perspective; for overestimating the costs of solutions, which has made problems seem insurmountable; and for belittling the efforts of activists and local government. Future coverage will acknowledge the importance of creating laws to better regulate industry, and readers can look forward to a new Environment section every Thursday, beginning this week.
Advertising
The Times acknowledges that accepting money from the very corporations whose activities we are responsible for reporting on — running ads from ExxonMobil while reporting on climate change, for example, or from weapons manufacturers while reporting on the Iraq War — represents an obvious conflict of interest. The Times is considering two alternative revenue models. In one, similar to that of National Public Radio, subsidies and contributions will make up the balance of the budget not covered by subscriptions. The other involves establishing exacting standards for advertisers, similar to those of the Christian Science Monitor, or the Guardian in the U.K. Please also see the Business section for a report on the end of publicly traded NYT stock.
Automobiles
In past issues the New York Times featured an entire section on automobiles. Our senior vice president of advertising, Alex Buryk, once described this section as providing “well-integrated print and online advertising opportunities” that “meet advertisers’ demands.” As the effect of automobiles on the global climate crisis becomes evident, The Times acknowledges it made a serious error in expanding this section by three and a half pages in the past two years. Developments in the automobile industry will from now on be covered in our business and technology sections, and only when newsworthy. There will be no more reviews of cars.
Portraits of Grief
From September 14 to December 31, 2001, the New York Times published “Portraits of Grief,” daily obituaries of the victims of the September 11 attacks. We are proud of this coverage, which won several awards. Tomorrow, the Times begins part two of the series with obituaries of the civilians and soldiers killed between 2001 and today in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two soldiers, and one hundred civilians, will be very briefly memorialized each day, adding a full fold-out page to each edition. The series will continue for thirty years. (Estimates of the number of Iraqis who have died violent deaths since the 2003 invasion vary from 100,000 to well over one million. The Times apologizes for consistently using only the low end of this spectrum of estimates.)
Media Monopoly
The Times apologizes for under-reporting the effects and dangers of media consolidation, perhaps due to our own efforts at media consolidation: The Times owns almost two dozen regional newspapers, a number of television and radio stations, and partial shares in the Red Sox and the Discovery Channel. We now recognize this conflict of interest. No newspaper should concern itself with maximizing profits, and the paper of record should be held to an even higher standard than the rest of the publishing industry. Over the next two months, The Times will voluntarily trust-bust itself, thus contributing to the independence of American journalism.
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