NYT’s public editor slams Nocera column on Buffett

Joe Nocera

Margaret Sullivan, the public editor at the New York Times, is critical of columnist Joe Nocera for his recent writing about billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Sullivan writes, “It’s understood that nobody needs to feel sorry for Mr. Buffett, one of the world’s wealthiest people, nor does he suggest anything of the kind. ‘I’ve got more ability to respond than most,’ he told me, in an understatement. Given his stature, his actions are fair game for legitimate criticism. But if you’re going to impugn someone’s integrity, you’d better have your facts straight.

“In this instance, because the second column is so intrinsically flawed, a standard correction didn’t get the job done. Mr. Nocera should have devoted at least part of another column to telling his readers what happened and why. In his email to me, Mr. Nocera referred to the second column’s fundamental mistake as ‘bad/dumb/embarrassing.’

“Such a forthright admission should not be confined to an email answer to the public editor’s question, but should be published in the same Times pages where the two columns ran. Ideally, the online version of the second column would provide a clear link to the mea culpa. That would go a long way toward making this right.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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jingoistic says:
May 9, 2014 at 1:02 pm
Ok, so Joe had the facts about Boar membership and retaliatory Fortune article wrong.
Do BH have 400 million shares of Coke?
Was Warren allowed to vote against the compensation plan?
Has Warren complained about excessive compensation and gone on record objecting to Coke's compensation plan as excessive?
Did Warren, however, vote in favor of the compensation plan?
Nothing wrong with Sullivan calling out Nocera, but Nocera is very, VERY right to call out Warren.