In an attention-getting column in yesterday's Times, public editor Clark Hoyt criticized the paper for failing to report on its own business challenges, thereby avoiding conflict with the publisher. Hoyt, who is charged with representing the interests of readers, wrote that the Times has hit a "rough patch," with revenues and profits in decline.
Hoyt noted that the Times has aggressively covered Rupert Murdoch's bid to buy Dow Jones and has tracked other turmoil in the newspaper industry, Reuters reports. But he charged that the "dramatic and important" story of the struggles within the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which owns the Times, has been largely left to others to report. (More Clark Hoyt stories.)