February 27, 2008

Imagine the NYT without...

... Linda Greenhouse. Retiring, at age 61.

16 comments:

Simon said...

It's a wise move. She's been outclassed and upstaged by Greenburg.

Ann Althouse said...

Oh, Greenhouse is terrific at what she does. She's done it for 30 years and she's retiring.

That said, 61 is too young to retire -- if you love what you're doing.

XWL said...

I assume that the terms of these buyouts prevent those taking these "retirements" from working at other papers for a few years, but there's always blogging . . .

I could see a new Althouse co-blogged site with Greenhouse, what would it be called?

Alt/Green-House
Green/Alt-House
Althouse/Greenhouse

maybe, Alt/Green-Supreme (asuming the site would focus on the Court).

Ed Veronda said...

She will surely be missed.
Western Justice
http://westernjustice.blogspot.com/

Gahrie said...

A supreme Court beat without Greenhouse will be like a White House beat without Helen Thomas....a welcome mirage.....

Fen said...

Is Greenhouse the one with the undisclosed conflict of interest? Reporting on cases her husband is working on?

If so, good riddance. Sorry, I wasn't kind to people who worked at Pravda either.

rhhardin said...

I her moving to The Onion, if there's no non-compete clause.

Anonymous said...

Fen:

Yes, she is the one who reported on cases in which her husband had an interest without disclosing the fact. But hey, it's the NYT.

Simon said...

Ann Althouse said...
"That said, 61 is too young to retire -- if you love what you're doing."

Oh, that I totally agree with. For people in, you know, "intellect economy" jobs - judges, academics, journalists, &c. - 61 seems prime-of-life.

Simon said...

Fen, I thought that her husband was just a co-author an an amicus brief? As conflicts of interest go, it's not exactly dynamite, a fortiori since - if my recollection is right - it isn't as if Greenhouse wasn't already sympathetic to the side her husband briefed. If she was married to Walter Dellinger, for example, and her reporting in the Exxon case now before the court favored Exxon, then we might reasonably have thought such coverage to deviate from her usual pattern of biases.

If Ginsburg didn't have conflict of interest in FAIR, I'm hard-pressed to see how Greenhouse is a more egregious case.

TigerHawk said...

Linda Greenhouse, who is very liberal, does a better job than most Times reporters of at least attempting to write objectively; in particular, the conflict of interest accusation tossed at her by some righty bloggers was legalistic and silly. My hope is that she is retiring from the Times so that she can write longer and more interesting stuff for other publications.

Trooper York said...

I think it is a good thing and eco friendly as it will help cut down on the emission of Greenhouse gas.

Roger J. said...

I think the ability translate legalese into the vernacular is very important--Greenhouse does have that quality (as does--and it pains me to admit this, Nina Totenberg). As to Professor A's point about retirement: 61 is far to young to retire; productive employment helps keep you sharp.

Simon said...

Roger, there are journalists who do that with far more panache (Lithwick) and even-handedness (JCG) than Greenhouse or Totenberg.

Chip Ahoy said...

Eventually NYT will get whittled down to publishing crossword puzzles exclusively, and that'll be fine with me, assuming we still have you to a'splain court rulings.

(By the way, I know you don't have anything to do with this, but that blinking ad is most annoying. The entire browser must be moved to the side and out of view in order to make the page readable.)

former law student said...

Not even the NYT is immune from decreasing ad revenues causing it to cut payroll; my local flagship paper is rapidly becoming a suburban shopper with some wire service stories, as newsroom cuts continue.