By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Last call for Clark Hoyt

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt signed off Sunday after three years as head of the paper’s internal-affairs division.

I thought he generally did a good job. Though he was less stylish and controversial than the first public editor, Daniel Okrent, he was always serious and thoughtful. He also re-established the importance of the job after his predecessor, Byron Calame, let it slide toward irrelevance.

Hoyt points to the Times’ shameful, unsupported 2008 report that then-presidential candidate John McCain may have had an affair with a lobbyist some years earlier as his “disagreement of greatest consequence” with executive editor Bill Keller. I would also point to it as his most significant contribution.

Hoyt’s departure also gives me an opportunity to link again to this fine profile by David McKay Wilson, a classmate of mine at Northeastern during the 1970s.

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1 Comment

  1. Neil Sagan

    Wherein Dan mails it in. Try this

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