cowling

The New York Times, a newspaper that is thought of as being the top source for news by many Americans, was brought down to a personal level yesterday afternoon, when UW-Oshkosh assistant professor Mike Cowling spoke about his experiences and views as being a summer editor on its National desk.

Cowling spoke to approximately forty people inside the ballroom at the Reeve Memorial Union with a presentation titled: All the News That's Fit to Print: An Insider's Look at the Venerable New York Times, from Adolph Ochs and Jayson Blair to the Coverage of the Byrd Expedition and the War in Iraq. The presentation is part of the Dean of Letters and Science Symposium Series.

Cowling said that the newspaper has changed since he started as an editor at the paper eight summers ago.

Jayson Blair, a reporter who plagiarized and fabricated many articles was a big cause for that change.

“Now the paper has a public editor, which is interesting because before the Jayson Blair , the stigma was ‘we do not believe in th
is, we think this is just a cop-
out’, ” Cowling said.

A public editor acts similar to an ombudsman, or a person who is a representative a newspaper’s readers.

Another change is that there is a new confidential sources division routine set up for the editorial process.

“There is now a three tier system of sourcing,” Cowling said. “ For example, if there is an article that is of extreme sensitivity, the reporter many repeal to the executive editor to keep their sources confidential but this is very rare.”

Despite problems the New York Times has faced in the past, Cowling said that the New York Times continues to be a highly respectable newspaper.

“The atmosphere in the newsroom is that they have a tradition and they expect any one who works there to follow it,” Cowling said.

“ They want the final product to be the best it can be. No matter who you are, you have as much stake in a story as anybody else.”

Along with certain editorial changes to the newspaper, Cowling also spoke about the importance of the Pulitzer Prize to the New York Times.
 
“The Pulitzer Prize is very important to the New York Times,” Cowling said. 

“If you want to be an executive editor at the New York Times you have do two things; work there for many years and you need to have won a Pulitzer Prize.”

The New York Times already has 90 Pulitzer Prize medals under their belt and still wants more.

Cowling said one has to submit a letter to the Pulitzer Prize panel in order to be considered and often the New York Times has it’s best writers to create the letter for a better chance at acknowledgement.

He is currently working on a book called “Pulitzers of the Times”.

Cowling ended his presentation describing how he feels to work at such a well-known newspaper.

“I think a lot of people think that people say, ‘This is it, this is the epitome’, Cowling said.  “But for me, I’ve always looked at it as, I just wanted to work at a big metro paper.”