...And Mau-Mauing The Flak Catcher

Donald Luskin observes that for recently departed New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent, “It was never about being the ‘reader’s representative’ — it was about ‘doing service’ for the paper, and protecting it from ‘enemies'”. Luskin highlights this quote from Okrent’s recent interview in On The Media:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: What in your opinion was your most important column?

DANIEL OKRENT: Mmm. That’s really tough. I guess I would have to say it was the one where I confronted the issue – the headline was: Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? And I probably did not do the paper as much service as I would have liked to with that column, because by the very headline, and the first line, which was: Of course it is, [LAUGHTER] I handed the paper’s enemies something that could be taken radically out of context. I made it too quotable.

Of course: heaven forbid a newspaper should be quotable.