Byron Calame

Remember the good old days of angry email exchanges between Barney Calame and Bill Keller?

Now, award-winning media critic Calame is giving credit to his boss, for deciding to continue on with the public editor position.

Back in January, that was still up for debate. Here's what Keller told The Observer:

"Over the next couple of months, as Barney's term enters the home stretch, I'll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur," meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times' executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

But last month, WWD reported that there would be a third public editor, and (one-time Barney hater) Jack Shafer started naming names.

While Calame didn't get into specifics on who should be the next public editor, he did heap praise on the "big shots" at the Times in yesterday's column:

Mr. Keller is now seeking someone to continue the public editor function when my fixed two-year term ends next month.... So if sometime next year the public editor describes in this space a journalistic lapse at the paper, readers would be wise to remember that Mr. Keller deserves some of the credit for sticking with the process that brought it to light.

--Michael Calderone

The New York Times will soon decide whether it will do away with its public editor.    read more »

Last Sunday the Times' public editor, Byron Calame, described how a canard had made it on to the front page: a report in April that the new Airbus jumbos would carry more than 800 passengers by having them stand up, harnessed to stalls. The story was wrong, but it went round the world faster than you can tie your shoes.

The problem with the public editor's story is that it reprises virtually the same story by the Observer's Gabe Sherman three weeks back. Sherman did his reporting on the heels of a lame-o correction of the airplane story in the Times on May 2. Sherman quoted a leading Times editor, Craig Whitney, saying that the correction was insufficient. And lo, the next day, The Times expanded its correction to an Editor's Note. Calame writes, "The May 2 correction did not go far enough in clearing up the issue, and top editors heard complaints from inside the newsroom. So on May 4 an Editors' Note essentially corrected the correction." The Public Editor opens his inquest with a sweet bromide of journalism: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. (I never got that one anyway—tell me how you check it out.) Right now I'm thinking of another bromide: Credit where credit is due.

Sometimes the smoke of battle has to clear before vital issues can be seen.  read more »

It looks like Judith Miller won't be returning to the New York Times newsroom Monday morning. Last week, the Times asked Miller to cut short her leave of absence and return to the paper Monday or Tuesday in an "unspecified editing" role, a source with knowledge of the situation said.

Previously, the Times had been negotiating with Miller about leaving the paper, discussing severance pay and a joint statement about her departure.

But both proposals--Miller going and Miller staying--have stalled out on the same negotiating point: Miller's desire to publish an op-ed in the Times to rebut her critics.

Miller is insistent, sources on both sides of the negotiation said, on getting a forum to rebut public criticisms of her by executive editor Bill Keller, columnist Maureen Dowd and public editor Byron Calame. With the Times unwilling to grant Miller the space, the negotiations are at an impasse.  read more »

--Gabriel Sherman

By Tuesday, Oct.  read more »

By Tuesday, Oct.  read more »