Score One for the New York Press
Sunday November 4, 2007
A few weeks back, the New York Press took on the New York Times with a breathless, overlong cover story questioning the ethics of Q+A queen meanie Deborah Solomon, who apparently routinely shuffles her interviewees’ responses around and sometimes makes up new questions to fit their answers. Hardly unusual journalistic practice, though from the complaints of This American Life quirkster Ira Glass and heir-to-Ann Landers Amy Dickinson—and a week later, a steamed letter to the editor by LA Times art critic Christopher Knight—it sounds like Solomon probably takes it too far. Still, it felt like a small dog nipping at the ankles of the great master, and as an allegation of impropriety, it was a drop in the ocean next to the Jayson Blair- and Judith Miller-level scandals that the paper has weathered in recent years. The Times didn’t bother responding, but this week, instead of Solomon’s usual byline, the Q+A in the Times Magazine comes with a disclaimer: “Interview conducted, condensed, and edited by Deborah Solomon.” Solomon must be just thrilled about that.
