Clark Hoyt: If I Had Meant ‘Tone it Down’ I Would Have Said That

The throwdown over at the New York Times Public Editor page continues. Quick recap: After spending the better part of this election season writing about Hillary Clinton in the kind of “gender twisting” terms that resulted in some serious accusations of sexism, Maureen Dowd was called out by Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt who concluded that Dowd had gone “over the top this election season” (to put it mildly). Shortly thereafter, Gail Collins (our admiration for her is no secret) wrote into the comments section of Hoyt’s piece saying, among other things, that it sounded like Hoyt was suggesting “that all of us tone things down. I hope I’m hearing wrong.” Well it turns out she was!

The Observer caught up with Hoyt who says that,

It was a comment on a single aspect of a columnist’s work from a columnist I greatly admire. It was not a message for other columnists to tone it down. If I had meant to say that I would have said it directly.

I was dealing with a set of columns and the language in them…I think it is the public editor’s role to comment on Op-Ed columns when there is either an issue of fact, which there wasn’t in this case, or an issue of tone, which I think there was in this case. It’s not about the opinions expressed. The language in this line of columns was over the top, it was repetitive and it was relentless.

Well, that clears that up, at least for today. If anyone over at the Times is paying attention we happen to think you could solve at least some of your ad revenue difficulties by having “The Conversation” include Hoyt, Collins, Dowd, preferably on “Blogging Heads.”

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