Save Barney

I’ve had my criticisms of NYTimes ombudsman Byron Calame, but his mission is a difficult one–and he has earned my respect with two columns taking the paper to task for its flawed abortion in El Salvador magazine cover story and for belatedly, if tepidly, admitting the paper’s reckless and wrong-headed decision to blab about the SWIFT banking surveillance program.

Calame has had a tough time getting his bosses to respond to him. Now, it seems they are going to respond…by possibly getting rid of his position. His term ends in May. The New York Observer runs with speculation that the paper will close the ombudsman’s office altogether:

The New York Times will soon decide whether it will do away with its public editor.

The two-year term of the current public editor, Byron (Barney) Calame, will conclude in May. There may, or may not, be another.

“Over the next couple of months, as Barney’s term enters the home stretch, I’ll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur,” meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times’ executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

…When reached by phone on Dec. 29, Mr. Calame said he had heard the news. His assistant, Joseph Plambeck, had attended an in-house Q&A on Dec. 15, at which Mr. Keller expressed the idea.

“I have been critical of the newsroom,” Mr. Calame said. “I’ve also praised the newsroom, and I think that Bill Keller has been—quite obviously—unhappy with some of the things I’ve written.”

“It seems to me that the high degree of independence that has been given to the public editor at The New York Times makes it a situation that inevitably causes criticism,” Mr. Calame said.

He added: “So it is not a surprise to me that The New York Times—that Bill Keller, the executive editor, and Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher—would want to sit down and think about whether they want to have a public editor.”

“I would be disappointed to see it eliminated,” said Daniel Okrent, a magazine-publishing veteran who served as The Times’ first public editor. Mr. Okrent said that it’s important to have “an independent voice commenting on the paper, holding it accountable.”

It’s clear the New York Times can’t stand the heat. Their stonewalling on the El Salvador abortion story (subject of today’s column) is the final nail in the paper’s credibility coffin.

It’s probably too late to save Barney, but at least send him a word of encouragement here for taking on mission impossible:

public@nytimes.com
Phone: (212) 556-7652
Public Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036-3959