My Home About Me

Deborah Solomon's weekly short interviews in the New York Times Magazine are the most irritating possible example of the snotty, smarmy, smug and holier-than-thou attotude that pervades the entire enterprise that is the Times. Now "public editor" Clark Hoyt has exposed her for the fraud she is.

Though presented in a way that suggests a verbatim transcript, the order of the interview is sometimes altered, and the wording of questions is changed.. And, Solomon told me, ?Very early on, I might have inserted a question retroactively, so the interview would flow better,? a practice she said she no longer uses.

?Questions For? came under fire recently when a reporter for New York Press, a free alternative weekly, interviewed two high-profile journalists ? Amy Dickinson, the advice columnist who followed Ann Landers at The Chicago Tribune, and Ira Glass, creator of the public radio program ?This American Life? ? who said their published interviews with Solomon contained questions she never asked.

...The Times Magazine published an angry letter from NBC?s Tim Russert, who said that the portrayal of his interview with her was ?misleading, callous and hurtful.?

Russert, the author of two books about his father, told me that the interview had been presented as an opportunity to talk about his mom on Mother?s Day. Instead, the interview, headlined, ?All About My Father,? featured a seemingly insensitive Russert dodging Solomon?s questions about his mother. ?I talked at great length about my mother,? he said, but none of it appeared in the published interview. Russert said that Solomon combined questions and took ?an answer and transposed it to another question.?

Gerald Marzorati, the editor of the magazine, said, ?We examined his complaint and found it more or less justified.? Russert had talked about his mother, Marzorati said, and Solomon made it appear that he had not. Solomon said, ?I made a mistake not putting in what he said about his mother.? Afterward, Marzorati said, a new policy was put in place, requiring that Solomon give the tapes of her interviews to her editor or a magazine researcher, in case a subject raised an objection. It was then, Solomon said, that she also stopped inserting retroactive questions.

Oh, there's more...

The [Ira] Glass interview was published last March, after the new safeguards were in place. Glass, who was just starting a television version of ?This American Life? on Showtime, was stung by this printed exchange with Solomon: Q: ?What do you think of the network?? A: ?I don?t meet many people who are talking about shows on Showtime.?

He did not deny saying it, but he said he was sure it came during a long conversation about how the network marketed itself. ?I don?t believe she asked me that question,? he said. ?If she did, it certainly didn?t precede that answer.?

Glass said, ?If I?m remembering this wrong,? the tape would establish what was said. But Solomon and the magazine editors can?t find it.

Here's the best part, where Solomon is caught bragging about her lack of journalistic ethics:

In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review in 2005, Solomon said: ?Feel free to mix the pieces of this interview around, which is what I do.?

?Is there a general protocol on that?? her questioner asked.

?There?s no Q. and A. protocol,? Solomon replied. ?You can write the manual.?

bailout   Basic Materials SPDR (XLB)   bond trading   bond yields   capitulation   climactic   commodities   credit crisis   credit crunch   Currency ETFs   day trading   Deron Wagner   DJIA chart   economic data   Emini's Nas 100   emini's S&P 500   emini's S&P 500e   ETFs (exchange trade funds)   ETFs (exchange traded funds)   Gold Miners ETF (GDX)