But it touches on one of the biggest problems in the media, which is that that too many in the field believe they are reporters, journalists and finders-of-fact, but in reality, they are crafting messages, shaping opinion, driving agendas.  

We never get the whole story, just the parts that lead where the writer wants us to go.  Oh, I know - they only have so much space, there's too much competition for instant information, they all want to be first with the story, and like the NYT, they worry about the details later.

Glenn Greenwald did a piece this week, about how people don't realize how bad the media is until they themselves are part of a story.  

Still, nothing drives home that point viscerally like being personally involved in matters the media is reporting and thus having first-hand knowledge of what is being claimed. Over the past two years, there's been extensive media coverage and public discussion of both the Snowden story and the building of First Look Media/The Intercept, in which I've been very personally involved. So much of what has been said and still gets said about those things -- not just by random online commenters and conspiracy-mongers but by the largest and most influential media outlets -- is just plainly wrong: not "wrong" in the sense of resting on unpersuasive opinions or even casting a misleading picture, but "wrong" in the sense of being factually, demonstrably false.

It's so frequent, so common, that it's impossible even to note all or even most of the falsehoods because one would never do anything else. And even if one devoted oneself to that task, many of the falsehoods would continue to thrive because of our reflexive assumption that what we read from respectable media outlets is true even if unaccompanied by evidence, and because most people lack the time and inclination to independently verify what they're told about matters in which they have no personal stake.

But it's a monumentally important experience for any journalist to have. It teaches a crucial lesson: It's simultaneously humbling about the limits of one's ability to fully understand complicated situations about which one has no first-hand knowledge, and illuminating about the inherent subjectivity with which we all view everything.

I would like to say that so many so called journalist are not journalist at all. They think they are because they have a voice and an audience but they are not Edward R Murrow reporting from London during WWII.

I just listened to the Katie Couric and Gawker founder and CEO Nick Denton on Yahoo. It started with the Hulk Hogan and the law suit but then she got to the Anderson Cooper and Tim Cook outing. He felt that the inner circle knew about Anderson and that is was their obligation to let the entire world know also. Her argument was that wasn't it up to the outed to make that decision. Using that one thing as an example, I knew he was gay for many years and I was not in his inner circle. I had read it in a blog reply somewhere. It made sense but the main thing was I did not CARE. It was his business and not effecting anything in the world.

 What may work to limit the Clinton decision to engage here is the outline and direction of the letter itself ...i.e., she did not throw the "kitchen sink."  The letter conveys a firmness about the treatment of one issue; it communicates genuine, strong disagreement about that issue in a controlled way; and, it doesn't entirely slam the door. As to the relationship with NYT, it is up to that publication at this point.  Whatever happens, tho, the manner and delivery of the letter guarantees that less than subtle retaliation by the paper will be noticed, decried, and then some.  

I'm guessing that--after years of NYT's curious treatment, beginning with "Whitewater"--Clinton decided to take a calculated risk that the NYT had overplayed its hand, with a resultant temporary advantage shift.  Maybe so, maybe not.  One thing we also know about the newspaper business today is that they need to increase or, at least, hold their subscribers.  So .... who knows but that many of the profiled NYT subscribers and supporters may admire, respect Hillary Clinton; and, who knows but that the potential loss of their revenue in that area might cause even the NYT to reconsider the present error prone direction.  

Let Hilary go after NYT for publishing what is false and not correcting it,
even if she loses in court,

The New York Times is arguably the most important news outlet in the world ....

This was, to put it mildly, an egregious breach of the process that should occur when a major newspaper like the Times is pursuing a story of this magnitude. Not only did the Times fail to engage in a proper discussion with the campaign ahead of publication;...