Clark Hoyt is an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
who was the
public editor of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', serving as the "readers' representative." He was the newspaper's third public editor, or ombudsman, after
Daniel Okrent and
Byron Calame
Byron "Barney" Calame (born April 14, 1939, in Appleton City, Missouri) is an American journalist. He worked at ''The Wall Street Journal'' for 39 years, retiring as deputy managing editor in 2004. In 2005, he became the second public editor of ...
. His initial two-year term began on May 14, 2007, and was later extended for another year, expiring in June 2010.
Biography
Hoyt is a member of
The Hill School class of 1960 and a 1964 graduate of
Columbia College of Columbia University. Hoyt began his journalism career in 1966 at ''
The Ledger''. Shortly afterwards in 1968 he joined the American media company
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brand ...
, where he was deployed to work at the ''
Detroit Free Press
The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primari ...
'' as a general reporter, before progressing to become a political reporter. Indeed, Hoyt would spend most of his journalism career at Knight Ridder—except for a stint at ''
The Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.[The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company, commonly referred to as simply McClatchy, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states and ...]
in 2006.
During the 1980s and mid-2000s, upon Hoyt's return to Knight Ridder, he filled numerous positions within the company, including business editor, managing editor, Washington news editor, and chief of the Washington bureau. Hoyt also served as Vice President of News for Knight Ridder from 1993-99.
Hoyt is also a joint 1973
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
winner; a prize he shares with fellow journalist Robert Boyd for their coverage of the Democratic vice presidential nominee
Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton (September 4, 1929 – March 4, 2007) was an American lawyer serving as a United States senator from Missouri, from 1968 to 1987. He was briefly the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972. He ...
, and their uncovering of the electric shock treatment and powerful anti-psychotics used to treat Eagleton's ongoing mental health problems regarding his manic depression, which Eagleton tried to keep secret from the
Democratic presidential nominee
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 pres ...
and the press.
Departure from ''The New York Times''
On June 12, 2010, in his final analysis of his three-year tenure as ''The New York Times public editor, Hoyt said,
:
:For the past three years, my assignment has been to try to help this newspaper live up to its own high journalistic standards as it covered a historic presidential election, two wars, the Great Recession, violence in the Middle East and more. I have deplored the overuse of anonymous sources, warned against the creep of opinion into news analysis and worried about the preservation of Times quality on the Internet. But, in truth, I have sometimes felt less like a keeper of the flame and more like an internal affairs cop.
Further, upon commenting about the ''New York Times continual accusations of liberal bias, Hoyt said,
:There is no question that the editorial page is liberal and the regular columnists on the Op-Ed page are heavily weighted in that direction. There is also no question that The Times, though a national newspaper, shares the prevailing sensibilities of the city and region where it is published. It does not take creationism or intelligent design as serious alternatives to the theory of evolution. It prints the marriages and commitment ceremonies of same-sex couples. It covers art and cultural events out on the edge....But if ''The Times'' were really the Fox News of the left, how could you explain the investigative reporting that brought down Eliot Spitzer, New York’s Democratic governor; derailed the election campaign of his Democratic successor, David Paterson; got Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in ethics trouble; and exposed the falsehoods that Attorney General
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat, was telling about his service record in the Vietnam era?
References
External links
*
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Hoyt, July 25, 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoyt, Clark
Living people
1942 births
Columbia College (New York) alumni
The New York Times public editors
Miami Herald people
Detroit Free Press people
The Hill School alumni
Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners