NYTimes’ Sorkin: I am not a Wall Street Insider

New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan writes about when journalists are considering “insiders,” including Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Sullivan writes, “The author Dean Starkman draws a distinction between two kinds of journalism: access and accountability. In his new book about the failure of the financial press before the 2008 meltdown, ‘The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark,’ he analyzes The Times’s DealBook as a prime example of the former. That financial news section was founded by Andrew Ross Sorkin, one of The Times’s biggest stars, who is often criticized as representing Wall Street interests too unquestioningly, including in his regular appearances on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box.’

“Mr. Starkman writes that ‘access reporting tells readers what powerful actors say, while accountability reporting tells readers what they do.’ The business press failed the public miserably before the meltdown by accepting corporate spin at face value.

“Mr. Sorkin rejects such complaints, pointing to tough stories that DealBook has published, including those by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess. (Mr. Eisinger, of ProPublica, is also a regular DealBook contributor.)

“The criticism of him as an insider is, Mr. Sorkin says, ‘an old meme,’ and simply untrue.”

Read more here.

Is there room for a variety of approaches to dealing with sources? To some extent, yes. The Times — a large, establishment institution itself — provides a big tent for beat reporters, investigative reporters, critics and columnists. Each has a role, each a reporting technique.