The New York Times public editor Liz Spayd just found out how hard being a public editor can be. During an interview with Fox News, Spayd called out Times staffers’ tweets. Amid a wave of criticism, Spayd has now partially walked back her criticisms.
When asked about tweets by investigative reporter Eric Lipton (“White House as QVC. It has started.”) and Jerusalem bureau chief Peter Baker (“For a new president from reality television, a cabinet selection that resembles a pageant”), Spayd said told Fox News there should be “consequences.”
“I think that’s outrageous,” said Spayd. “…They shouldn’t be tweeted and they shouldn’t — and it does concern me that that would be… I don’t know that any of those people should be fired, but I do think that when people go over the line like that, and I think some of those are over the line, that there ought to be some kind of a consequence for that.”
After being slammed for her comments, Spayd told Politico “In retrospect, I should have held back more, not knowing what the context was for the tweets. I think that’s a fair criticism. But I stand by my view that journalists should be careful, sometimes more careful than they are, with what they say on social media. That includes how it can be interpreted.”
