If the New York Times is as as powerful as David Shaw (a former staffer) contends,  and reflecting on the Anti- Italian/Italian American bigotry the NY Times has displayed in the past, NOW, during the Times' "vulnerability", and their period of "introspection", would be a GOOD "time" to "approach" their "investigative" body, and INSIST on "fair" reportage regarding Italians and Italian Americans!!

This of course would be best addressed by NIAF, OSIA, UNICO, and COPMIAO.

To think that in the midst of a  numerically significant Italian American community,that such bigotry would be allowed to continue, is stupifying.

Perhaps a refocusing of our attention is in order.
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AN EDITOR INTOXICATED BY POWER
Los Angeles Times
By David Shaw
June 7, 2003

The executive editor of the New York Times is the most powerful journalist in America.

I'm sure that was true even before I became a firsthand witness to that power when I started writing about the news media in the mid-1970s, and it will remain true of whoever succeeds Howell Raines, who resigned Thursday amid mounting criticism of his role in championing and protecting Jayson Blair, the serial plagiarist and boastful liar who dishonored the nation's most honored newspaper.

I know, I know. Most people get most of their news from television, not newspapers, these days, so how can a newspaper editor be that powerful?

Where do you think network television news shows and newsmagazines get most of their ideas and priorities? From the New York Times.

The same is true of many local newspapers, which are heavily influenced by what's on Page 1 of the New York Times — and which, in turn, influence what local radio and TV stations think is news.

And in the media-cultural-financial heart of the country — the echo chamber that is New York City — no voice resonates more loudly than that of the executive editor of the New York Times.

Such power — and the pressure it inevitably brings — is intoxicating and even for men of honor and integrity, it can ultimately prove corrupting.

Abe Rosenthal was a brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter before climbing the editing ranks at the New York Times,... by the time he was dragged into retirement in 1986,... — had turned Rosenthal into a tyrannical, irascible boss who ruled by fiat, fear and favoritism.

Max Frankel...did succeed in restoring order and civility to a newsroom that under Rosenthal had become part combat zone, part primal therapy treatment center.

Joe Lelyveld succeeded Frankel in 1994...was cerebral and aloof...

Then, in September 2001, came Raines..."He's conducting a reign of terror at the paper," a friend and colleague called to say. "He's arrogant. He's playing favorites... He just wants to make his mark on the paper as fast as he can."...Although Raines is a superb journalist —... he was arrogant and rigid...

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., in selecting Raines as executive editor, ignored warning signs that his arrogance and single-mindedness represented an even greater potential disaster...

The New York Times won seven Pulitzer Prizes last year, six of them for its coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...

That triumph...may have been the worst thing that could have happened ...It validated Raines' "flood-the-zone," take-no-prisoners approach to journalism, and it intimidated into silence any potential in-house dissenters or critics...

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com. Media Matters appears regularly in Sunday Calendar.

An editor intoxicated by power
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/printedition/calendar/
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