Best columnist of the year
by digby
In my book this "award" goes to Margaret Sullivan, the NYT ombudsman. She understands journalism's role in a democracy and the specific role of the New York Times in the global media ecosystem than any who have come before her. I hope they listen to her. The readers certainly do.
This last column of the year in which she surveys the issues that were important to the Times audience is a case in point. There are lots of excellent observations but I thought this was especially on point:
6. The surveillance state. Despite what Time magazine decided, the person of the year clearly was the whistleblower Edward J. Snowden, and the story of the year was the far-reaching, secretive, everyday surveillance of Americans and many others by the United States government. (Not every news organization shares my view; ABC News’s Monday night look-back at 2013 managed to feature Batkid, at some length, but Snowden not at all.) The continued persecution of leakers and the press is a related issue of great importance, and the federal government’s misguided insistence on pursuing Times reporter James Risen is just one part of that, an affront to the First Amendment.
Mr. Snowden’s initial massive leak of classified information went to Barton Gellman at the Washington Post, the filmmaker Laura Poitras, and to Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who wrote for the Guardian U.S. and who now is forming a new media company. As a result, The Times found itself last spring and summer playing an unwelcome game of catch-up. It responded by breaking some good stories, and – through a strong alliance with ProPublica and the Guardian – The Times managed to get a piece of the action.
Perhaps the challenge most important to the democracy in 2014 is to push back harder, to put the weight of The Times behind that push through every means possible: the legal battles as they arise or continue, the bully pulpit of editorials, the revealing light of aggressive news reporting.
That's a real journalist folks, and the very best of institutional journalism. May more mainstream papers and networks pay close attention to Sullivan in the next year and follow her advice.