This Is Not the First Time We Have Seen Alessandra Stanley, Is It?
Perhaps Margaret Sullivan could read her predecessor?
Margaret Sullivan: An Article on Shonda Rhimes Rightly Causes a Furor: "Alessandra Stanley['s]... first paragraph--with a reference to Ms. Rhimes as an 'Angry Black Woman'...
...struck many readers as completely off-base. Many called it offensive. Some went further, saying it was racist. Another reference to the actress Viola Davis as 'less classically beautiful' than lighter-skinned African American actresses immediately inspired a mocking hashtag.... I have asked Ms. Stanley for further comment (she has said that her intentions were misunderstood, and seemed to blame the Twitter culture for that.... Culture editor, Danielle Mattoon.... 'There was never any intent to offend anyone and I deeply regret that it did', Ms. Mattoon said. 'Alessandra used a rhetorical device to begin her essay, and because the piece was so largely positive, we as editors weren’t sensitive enough to the language being used'. Ms. Mattoon called the article 'a serious piece of criticism', adding, 'I do think there were interesting and important ideas raised that are being swamped' by the protests. She told me that multiple editors--at least three--read the article in advance but that none of them raised any objections...
The Nytpicker (August 2009): How Does Alessandra Stanley Get To Keep Her Job As TV Critic? That's One Question Clark Hoyt Neglects To Ask. "Under the headline 'How Did This Happen?' Public Editor Clark Hoyt...
...today purports to address Alessandra Stanley's famously-flawed appraisal of Walter Cronkite on July 18, and to explain how the TV critic could end up with a whopping 8-error correction. But while Hoyt names several editors who failed to catch the mistakes in Stanley's piece, he ignores the deeper question on readers' minds. How does a television critic who has had 91 corrections of her work in just six years get to keep her job? Nowhere in Hoyt's 1,228-word essay today does the Public Editor address the question of what consequences Stanley has faced as a result of her epic fail on July 18. By focusing on the mechanics of the screw-up--which includes naming editors who read the piece and who didn't fact-check it--Hoyt bypasses the issue of a systemic breakdown at the NYT that led to the error-riddled essay.
