NYT's Failure to Cover The Royal Ballet in Cuba

Here is the response from the Office of the Public Editor at The New York Times:

Dear Reader,

Thank you for writing. This office does not direct news coverage but I will make sure the Arts desk sees your message. The Times did cover the initial plans to go to Cuba but does not seem to have followed up on the actual performances.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/arts/dance/25arts-THEROYALBALL_BRF.html

Sincerely,
Michael McElroy
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

Note:  The public editor's opinions are his own and do not represent those of The New York Times.

 

Here is our response to that response:

Mr.  McElroy:

We thank you for your reply and for forwarding our complaint to the "Arts desk."   Indeed we saw the preliminary alert in the Arts Brief last May and were eagerly awaiting full coverage from cultural and political perspectives.   Not only did the Times fail to fully cover the events in Cuba, it failed to cover them at all.  Clearly a poorly informed editorial decision was made that The Royal Ballet's visit to Cuba was not news worthy  – a position contrary to that of CNN, Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters, CBS News, Financial Times, BBC News, MSNBC, Associated Press and other national and worldwide news organizations. 

The purpose of writing to the Public Editor was to ask for an investigation as to why the Times's judgment on this story was 180 degrees from all other nationally and world-renowned news organizations.   It is the consensus outside the thick walls of your building that the Times blew it.  While we thank you for forwarding our message on to the "Arts desk," quite frankly, we could have done that ourselves.  

 Hopefully, you will see fit to delve into this matter a bit more seriously. 

Haglund's Heel
http://haglundsheel.typepad.com

 

 

Comments

[tonya]

Yeah, annoying response. Please keep us posted on what you find out!

[Haglund]

That's probably their last response. We would have to coax Mike Wallace out of retirement to get to the real bottom of this, and he'd probably just find that their bottom is covered with you-know-what and they really don't care.