What’s behind the NY Times delay in hiring a media columnist

Charlotte Klein of Vanity Fair looks at why the New York Times has yet to hire a media columnist to replace Ben Smith, who left last year.

Klein writes, “I’m told people involved with hiring have solicited beat memos from journalists both inside and outside the paper, though it’s unclear what, if anything, has come of them. A few names outside have emerged as contenders, including the Washington Post media writer (and former Vanity Fair special correspondent) Sarah Ellison, former CNN anchor Brian Stelter, and Puck media columnist Dylan Byers; all three had conversations with newsroom leaders, according to sources. (Semafor’s Max Tani reported earlier on potential candidates in Smith’s new media newsletter, which is now blasted out on Sunday nights around the same time his old Times column used to appear online.) I’m told that Byers was in talks with management about the job but took himself out of the running late last year. Stelter, meanwhile, has had additional meetings with the Times in recent weeks.

“It’s surprising for such a high-profile perch—one that Smith made a weekly destination for media junkies not seen since the David Carr era—to be dormant for this long. A Times insider last year told me that Smith’s departure presented an opportunity ‘for rethinking the focus’ of its signature column. And yet, one person who talked to the Times for the gig told me they got the impression that the Times was still trying to figure out what they were doing with the column—and looking for a columnist to come to them with a clear vision for it. ‘We continue to seek to fill the position,’ a Times spokesperson told me, ‘but don’t have anything further to share on our personnel processes.'”

Read more here.