'NY Times' Reader Survey on Content Draws Blog Interest

By: Joe Strupp It seems The New York Times can?t even conduct a reader survey without it becoming a major Web discussion topic.

An online survey of readers, which Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis dubbed "what responsible organizations do," sparked initial interest Wednesday afternoon from Vanity Fair's "Power & Politics" blog. On that site, Bruce Feirstein raised the issue of the survey and its use of questions about past Times coverage of WMD's, Israel, and other issues; the negative actions of Jayson Blair and Judith Miller; and the paper's controversial running of the infamous "General Betray-Us" ad from Moveon.org.

"In an informal office poll of VF editors, some of us see this survey as an indication of a new, 'touchy feely' Times; others used the words 'paranoid and frightened.' And still others wondered whether this was commissioned by the publisher, or the editorial side of the paper," Feirstein wrote. "As one editor queried: 'How would you feel if the publisher was asking these kinds of questions about the editorial content? If I were a reporter, I?d be furious.'?

Vanity Fair even linked to a screen shot of the entire survey. It also noted the survey misspelled Blair's first name as Jason.

Not to be outdone, The New Republic blog, "The Plank," followed hours later with a report that claimed " ? the poll's references to recent newsroom controversies including Jayson Blair, Judith Miller, MoveOn's 'General Betray-Us' ad, and the NSA wiretapping expos?, were downright shocking for Times Kremlinologists, for whom the survey seemed to offer an unlikely window onto the paper?s Id. The list of topics on which readers were polled potentially indicated which incidents insiders considered the most damaging to the paper's reputation."

Gabriel Sherman, who posted the New Republic item, also quoted Times deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, who oversees the Times? web operations, as saying the newsroom was not involved in the survey: ?These are done by the marketing department. It?s got nothing to do with the editorial side."

Reached by E&P, Mathis added that "We regularly poll our readers ? we do many different polls in a variety of ways. There are a whole span of issues that they cover; some are content, some are business and some are a way to determine which sections of the paper people read in different parts of the country."