NYT Public Editor Defends Supreme Court Reporter Accused of a Conflict
Linda Greenhouse, the reporter for the New York Times who covers the U.S. Supreme Court, has been accused of a conflict of interest by a conservative blogger, a charge she and her editors dispute.
Greenhouse is married to Eugene Fidell, an expert on military law. Blogger M. Edward Whelan III has pointed out that Fidell filed an amicus brief opposing administration policies in a case involving a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Greenhouse reported on amicus briefs in the case without mentioning the one filed by her husband.
The Times’ Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet, says the conflict is only abstract, since Fidell does not represent any Guantanamo prisoners, the New York Times reports. But the paper’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, says he is troubled that the Times’ conflicts guidelines do not require disclosure. Greenhouse’s online biography says she is married to Eugene Fidell, but that is not enough, he concludes.
“I think the Times should systematically disclose more about … the intersections between the personal and professional lives of its journalists,” Hoyt says.
Still, Hoyt concludes that Whelan has gone overboard in his criticism. “His increasingly intemperate and personal attacks on Greenhouse indicate something other than a legitimate concern about ethics,” Hoyt writes. “They feel more like bullying.”
Whelan takes issue with Hoyt’s criticism at his blog, Bench Memos. Hoyt “doesn’t like the fact that I’ve criticized Greenhouse effectively, so he’s resorting to the pages of his powerful paper to try to slap me down,” Whelan writes.
