The New York Times announced an expansion of its standards department and will hire five new editors to support its initiative of "maintaining our readers' trust."
"Nothing is more important than maintaining our readers' trust," the Times' press release read. "It's why we long ago established a Standards department to ensure that our coverage meets our high bar for independence, fairness and accuracy. And it's why we more recently set up a Reader Center to help desks across the newsroom be more transparent with readers about how and why we do what we do, and to build more channels for readers to share their feedback directly with our journalists.
"Today we're taking the next step by merging the Reader Center's mission into a significantly larger and more empowered Standards department. This investment will take a standards operation that is already one of the largest in journalism and roughly triple its size."
Once considered the U.S. paper of record, the paper has been rebuked by President Donald Trump as the "failing" New York Times for its attacks on his administration and generally being one of the perpetrators of "fake news" and an "enemy of the people."
In September, reporters on a Justice Brett Kavanaugh story claimed editors had cut out details of a sexual misconduct accuser failing to recall the alleged incident.
"The department will now review significantly more stories before publication; provide greater oversight and consultation in areas beyond traditional articles, including social media, audio, video, TV and newsletters; substantially expand training; and update and expand our stylebook and Ethical Journalism handbook," the statement co-signed by Executive Editor Dean Baquet, Managing Editor Joe Kahn, and Editorial Page Editor James Bennet read.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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