For the Record

NY Times watch: Still no article on directed halt to Iraqi Health Ministry civilian casualty survey

But hey, you can read about how middle class Iraqis are buying more BMWs here: Commerce: With More Money to Spend, Middle-Class Iraqis Go Shopping

You can contact Daniel Okrent, the Time ombudsman, about this dereliction of duty by e-mail: public@nytimes.com or phone: (212) 556-7652.

Maybe now the Times will start covering (all) the news

The Times has hired Daniel Okrent as ombudsman/public editor, ostensively in response to the Jayson Blair "scandal". But the real scandal is how much the newspaper of record leaves off the record (e.g., no mention of the Employee Free Choice Act mentioned in the previous post, introduced Nov 13 by Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller).

Their "news analyses" could use some progressive monitoring, too, as with this piece by R. W. Apple, Jr. on how Gore's endorsement gives Dean "problems of self-definition". Besides missing the point (how about this for self-definition: NOT BUSH), Apple says "Dr. Dean, a former governor of a small, out-of-the-way state ... has less experience on the national or international stage than any other important major-party candidate in memory — less even than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton".

So, Bush had tons of experience on the national/international stage? Come on.

According to exec. ed. Bill Keller, Okrent will operate outside management structure of newspaper's newsroom and its editorial page and will be given unfettered opportunity to address readers' comments about The Times's coverage, to raise questions of his own and to write about such matters in commentaries that will be published in newspaper as often as he sees fit.

Okrent may be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com. Telephone messages: (212) 556-7652.