Okrent Backs 'Times' in Nixing Michael Moore Request

By: Joe Strupp Daniel Okrent, public editor of The New York Times, said today the paper was right to deny film director Michael Moore?s request to reprint a Times editors' note in his upcoming book. ?I?m sympathetic with the decision because the paper has the right not to be used for purposes other than what is intended, to write for their readers,? Okrent told E&P.

Okrent also said he ?was insulted? that Moore did not want to reprint any of his columns about war coverage. ?I would want to be able to say no to him,? he said. ?I don?t like to be used for people?s political purposes.?

He added that he had not been consulted about the decision on the editors' note, which was made by Executive Editor Bill Keller in consultation with Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., according to the Times.

The May 26 editors' note, which drew wide-ranging attention within the newspaper industry at the time it was published, criticized several areas of the Times? reporting on the events leading up to the Iraq War. Moore wants to use the note in his upcoming book, ?The Official 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Reader,? to be released in October.

His publisher says every other publication has approved requests for reprinting.

Okrent compared Moore?s use of the note with allowing a political campaign to reprint the note or any story. ?The context in which the piece was written was for Times readers. In a Michael Moore book, it is for political purposes,? Okrent said. ?If the paper were to allow a political campaign to reprint articles, then they ought to let Michael Moore do it.?

The public editor also pointed out that Moore could legally paraphrase the editor?s note to show his readers what the Times did. ?If Michael Moore wants to inform his readers of what the Times wrote, that is fine,? Okrent said. ?But this is in a different context.?

E&P has been unable to reach Moore for comment, but he told the Times in an interview that the paper "made the determination of what is in the book without having read it. I think that's pretty lame."