Columnists Gone Wild - Op-Ed Infighting Over Gender Bias at the New York Times

Nobody likes to admit their mistakes. Or have them pointed out by others.

That may be why many in the media are reluctant to look back at the coverage of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign as a whole and shamefacedly admit, "Yep, we may have been sexist in some respects."

Introspection isn't part of the average journalist's daily ablution. After all, the story's about someone else, not them. And when they're taught from day one that they shouldn't leave their fingerprints all over the subjects they report on, to suggest that they've gone and done exactly that is tantamount to calling someone a hack. So that's another reason why an admission of gender bias is hard to come by. It's an acknowledgment that we've failed at our craft.

But here and there, the articles and interviews and discussions are popping up, in print, online, on radio and TV. Gender bias happened, whether anyone cares to acknowledge it or not.

The New York Times cast a wide net in an article implicating various media entitled "Critics and News Executives Split Over Sexism in Clinton Coverage" published June 13. The article focused in large part on broadcast news.

The venerable newspaper hit closer to home when columnist Clark Hoyt, the man behind The Public Editor, wrote "Pantsuits and the Presidency" on June 22. His op-ed examined the NYT's own gender-biased coverage, and looked hard at popular NYT columnist Maureen Dowd's vitriolic anti-Hillary attacks, acknowledging, "Even she, I think, by assailing Clinton in gender-heavy terms in column after column, went over the top this election season."

Ah, but the finger-pointing didn't stop here. On June 29, again in the op-ed section, another NYT columnist, Gail Collins, herself a former editorial page editor, jumped in to respond to what she saw as Clark's "assault on Maureen Dowd":

The sharpness of her wit makes her commentary particularly painful to those who are on the receiving end. That’s also why so many readers love her and exactly what The New York Times pays her to do.

When the public editor laces into an opinion page columnist for making fun of a controversial political figure, it sounds like a suggestion that all of us tone things down. I hope I’m hearing wrong.

I wish I were reading wrong, but nope, that's what Collins said. I'm more inclined to side with Jim Miara, a reader who didn't mince words:

Ms. Dowd says columnists are supposed to be controversial. But loaded words combined with a mean spirit produce a teenage diary....

You say that Ms. Dowd “went over the top this election season,” which makes it sound as if she was merely in a batting slump. It was worse than that, of course; it was an embarrassment for The Times.

Thank you Mr. Miara. I couldn't have said it any better.