NY Times Not Just For Liberals Anymore

The editor of the NY Times says the newspaper needs to reach out beyond its current liberal base:

In a lengthy memo published the newspaper's Web site, Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, announced several new policies in response to a recent report by the paper's Credibility Committee. Among them is a fresh attempt to diversify the Times' staff and viewpoints, and not in the usual racial or gender ways, but in political, religious and cultural areas as well.

The aim, he wrote, is "to stretch beyond our predominantly urban, culturally liberal orientation, to cover the full range of our national conversation."

The point, Keller wrote, "is not that we should begin recruiting reporters and editors for their political outlook; it is part of our professional code that we keep our political views out of the paper (how's that working out? - HolyCoast). The point is that we want a range of experience. We have a recruiting committee that tracks promising outside candidates, and that committee has already begun to consider ways to enrich the variety of backgrounds of our reporters and editors.

Of course, admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery, so I guess it's good that the Times is starting to realize that they are not representing the views of anyone but a narrow band of East coast liberals. However, how are they going to find reporters with a broader outlook when most if not all of their top candidates will be graduates of very liberal journalism schools? The problem, as Lileks has previously discussed, is that many people getting into journalism do so because they want to "change the world", and not because they want to report the news without bias. There is a difference, though I'm not sure the Times realizes that.