Would-be press lord Arthur Sulzberger Jr, and his familiar, Howell Raines, made the scene at a Berkeley soiree:
In a public discussion about their editorial process, The New York Times' top decision-makers answered critics about the paper's coverage of the Middle East and the possible war against Iraq.Around here we have to buy fancy equipment to spread this stuff around, but these guys can do it effortlessly!
The Times has sought to ensure an open and honest political debate takes place before the nation decides whether to wage war, Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. told a forum at the University of California, Berkeley on Monday.
"That's our job," said Sulzberger, who appeared with Howell Raines, the Times' executive editor, in a dialogue moderated by Orville Schell, the dean of Berkeley's graduate school of journalism, and Mark Danner, a professor at the school who also is a staff writer for the New Yorker.
Raines said the Times will work hard to get reporters and photographers into the war zone, as it did in Afghanistan, despite any Bush administration efforts to control the media in a press pool.
Danner noted that conservatives have accused the paper of campaigning against using military action to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Raines said the paper is merely reporting on the political process.
"If there's an absence of debate in the country, if Congress is not standing up to the administration in an adversarial way, that's a news story," Raines said.
