The public editor at the New York Times, Arthur Brisbane, recently wrote in his weekly Public Editor column about the trustworthiness of Robert Bryce, the nation’s leading energy journalist who has graduated to being a top energy public policy scholar, period. (Hard work, smarts, attention to detail, and open-mindedness earns the latter designation.)
In The Times Gives Them Space, but Who Pays Them? (October 29, 2011), Brisbane laid out a controversy that is worth reviewing. The question is: Does a writer’s paid association disqualify him or her as a reliable source of public policy analysis and opinion?
Here is how Brisbane asks and answers it.
…PEOPLE don’t just argue about what is written on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. They argue about who is doing the writing and why.