Cowling speaking

The New York Times has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other newspaper. However, after the Jayson Blair scandal and the coverage leading into the Iraq war, Mike Cowling, UW-Oshkosh professor and employee of the Times, thinks the paper may have lost its "edge."
Cowling spoke to an audience of professors, administrators and students at the Dean’s Symposium held yesterday in Reeve Memorial Union.
Cowling has worked at the New York Times for the past eight summers as a copy editor and continues to work five nights a week reviewing sections for The Time’s Web site.
“I think it’s lost a little bit of its edge since Jayson Blair, Cowling said.
He also criticized Judith Miller’s reporting of whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction leading up to the war.
He also told the audience what it was like working for the paper.
The Times treats its employees well Cowling said. The copy desk has seven hour work days and anything more you employees receive overtime, the Times also gives out monthly awards for reporters, photographers and for headline writing. Cowling won $300 for a headline he had written regarding a new hot tub installed during former President Clinton’s administration, “White House Addition lets President Enjoy being in Hot Water,”
Cowling discussed the editing process stories go through before they see print and admitted afterwards even the Times makes mistakes.
“We don’t care whose name is on it everyone’s got a stake in it,” he said.
An audience question led Cowling to discuss the corrections page.
The Times makes corrections must papers wouldn’t, he said. They made a correction for an article that ran 50 years prior to it.
Mike Cowling has been a professor at UW-Oshkosh for 10 years and prior to this had worked for The Chicago Sun-Times and The Los Angles Times. He had also taught part-time at California University Fullerton and at California Poly-Pomona.
Cowling has written for the Grass Roots Editor on diversity changes in small communities and has written an article on how the staff of the Oshkosh Northwestern handled three changes in ownership.
In October 2004, he was inducted into the journalism hall of fame at Eastern Illinois University. He graduated from Eastern in 1975.