Top NYT Editor Lydia Polgreen to Huff Post

Lydia Polgreen, editorial director, New York Times Global, has joined Huffington Post as editor-in-chief, succeeding founder Arianna Huffington, who sold HP to AOL in 2011 for $311 million.

Polgreen, 41, with NYT since 2002, previously was a correspondent in South Africa, India and West Africa for NYT. She has also been serving as associate masthead editor, overseeing the paper’s overseas expansion.

Huffington now operates Thrive Global, a health-oriented website. www.thriveglobal.com.

Polgreen tweeted about remarks made by CNN president Jeff Zucker at the Committee to Protect Journalists dinner Nov. 22 in the Waldorf-Astoria: “Some cognitive dissonance hearing David Remnick (New Yorker editor) then Jeff Zucker on press freedom tonight at the CPJ awards dinner.”

Zucker, who had been told the day before by Donald Trump that, “I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed,” made a plea for fair treatment by Trump and said CNN “will hold the new administration’s feet to the fire and they should respect that even if they don’t welcome it.”

Poynter’s Warren Saw “Hypocrisy”

James Warren, Poynter’s chief media writer, said, “There was no evident suggestion of hypocrisy expressed around the room but that clearly was the take of some at the august New York gathering.” Guests paid a minimum of $1,000 a seat. The CPJ staff of 27 also had the regular meal while working press sat in the balcony and dined on pretzels, potato chips and sandwiches. NYT had a table at the dinner.

Meriam Elder, Buzzfeed’s world editor, tweeted there were “laughs in part of the crowd” when Zucker said CPJ will “hold the administration’s feet to the fire.”

Trump told the Nov. 21 meeting with reporters, “We’re in a roomful of liars, the deceitful, dishonest media who got it all wrong,” reported the New York Post. Headline was “Summit is a firing squad.”

Zucker made no mention of the Trump blast at the CPJ dinner, funded by blue chip media and other corporations.

Huff Post’s “Progressive Mandate” Cited

Polgreen said she was drawn to Huff Post’s “explicitly progressive mandate and identity.” NYT added the words, “particularly given this moment in the country’s history.”

Jared Grusd, CEO of HP, said, “We were looking for someone who has tremendous integrity, with deep roots in the process of journalism and the way in which it needs to function. She’s somebody who can carry our voice and translate our narratives across fundamental shifts in the media landscape and political landscape.”

Critics, including Trump and others, have said that NYT’s coverage of the race for the presidency showed bias against Trump that was reflected not only in its news pages but particularly on its editorial pages. NYT itself editorialized in favor of Hillary Clinton.

NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. partially acknowledged the one-sided coverage in a public statement and promised NYT would “rededicate ourselves” to fairness and honesty in reporting. NY Post columnist Michael Goodwin, who said NYT “demonized Trump’s candidacy from start to finish,” called the Sulzberger statement “part apology and part justification for the campaign coverage.” In other words, it was a half-hearted apology.

Trump Shut Out on Editorial Pages

The paper was “virulently anti-Trump from the moment he entered the race,” noted Fraser Seitel, O’Dwyer columnist. He said all NYT editorial page contributors were anti-Trump including Charles Blow, Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, David Brooks, Ross Douthat and Frank Bruni.

Douthat, supposedly Republican, “cast his lot with the never-Trumpers, pointing out that the candidate’s views were neither conservative nor libertarian,” wrote Seitel.

Another NYT columnist, Maureen Dowd, had called Trump, “the Kardashian of the political world.”

Speaking at TheWrap’s Power Women Breakfast in Washington D.C.’s W Hotel March 10, she called Trump “egregious” for how he “brought a level of vulgarity” to politics, and likened him to the demon Grendel, impenetrable to any threat except that of classical hero Beowulf.

But “that’s how politics is right now,” said Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. “I have never seen a political candidate who is so able to generate news and attention every minute of every hour of every day,” she said.

CPJ Focuses on U.S. Press Interference

CPJ, after focusing almost exclusively on interference with press coverage abroad for many years, now says it will focus on threats to press coverage in the U.S. because “A Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown modern history,” according to Sandera Mims Rowe, CPJ president the past five years.

A CPJ statement said, “Since the beginning of his candidacy, Trump has insulted and vilified the press and has made his opposition to the media a centerpiece of his campaign. Trump has routinely labeled the press as ‘dishonest’ and ‘scum’ and singled out individual news organizations and journalists.” Full text of the CPJ statement is here.

CPJ, with $16.5 million in net assets not counting the $1.75M it took in Nov. 22, and a New York staff of 27, needs to look at the restrictive policies of the major PR groups such as PR Society of America, Arthur W. Page Society, (PR) Seminar and the International Assn. of Business Communicators.

PRSA and IABC, the largest groups, at one time published names and contacts of its members and made them available to the press. Page and Seminar member lists have always been private.

The role of PR in helping or not helping reporters needs to be examined. Also in need of investigation is the legal/court system which is marred by the almost total disappearance of jury trials. “Justice” is administered in a series of mini-trials in judges’ chambers. Costs of legal actions are frightening.

CPJ Has New PR Contact

Kerry Paterson was recently named CPJ senior advocacy and communications officer. She joined two years ago.Her assistance is being sought on how CPJ will approach the issue of press freedom in the U.S.

She was a senior associate, CPJ Africa program, from May 2016 to October 2016 when she was named to her current post. Before that she was consultant for Initiative for Conflict-Related Trauma from September 2013 to September 2014 in Northern Ireland.

She has a Masters of Global Affairs from the University of Toronto which she attended from 2012-1014. She has a B.A., graduating with High Distinction, from the University, in Peace and Conflict studies and political science.