So far, so good

Clark Hoyt, the new public editor at the NYT, is pretty darn cool, at least so far. I have to give them credit for hiring him -- he oversaw Knight Ridder's pre Iraq war coverage in 2002-2003 that set out a very different story than what the NYT and the rest of the media were publishing. He was brave and got it right.

In his column Sunday, he took issue with the Times' recent use of "Al Qaeda" to describe just about anyone the Bush Administration doesn't like in Iraq. At some point in the last few months, the Bush Admin put that in place as a new communication strategy, and it worked, with the media going right along with what was clearly nonsense. Liberal bloggers have pointed this out, and how Hoyt is on the Times' case. And pretty quickly.

Also on Sunday: The NYT editorial page came out for an end to the Iraq war. This makes it the second major paper to do so, behind the LATimes.