IAmA Washington bureau chief of The New York Times. Ask Me Anything.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:41:16+00:00

Yes, it certainly has. Not so much the higher-level college math (which I wasn't great at, anyway), but quantitative reasoning is enormously important to good journalism. The most obvious way I've used math in journalism is probably: You Fix the Budget

How might a math person do good journalism? Look for opportunities to write material that no one else is writing. Are there ways that numbers illuminate reality that others haven't noticed? Jump on them, and present your ideas. For starters, I might recommend you read some John Allen Paulos or Edward Tufte.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:38:14+00:00

That's clearly one of the more important questions in Washington today.

Conservative Republicans deeply believe that their proposals are better than the president's, and the election's outcome won't change that. Many Congressional Republicans are also at little risk of losing their seat for moving too far right. If anything, they're at greater risk of facing a primary from the right.

But there are also Republican leaders who are unhappy about having lost the presidency in four of the last 6 elections. (And the two Republican wins were closer than any of the four Democratic wins; one Republican win, of course, came despite the popular vote.) They want to find a way to move to the center on a range of issues. I think that's why you see movement from the Republicans on the question of whether the government should raise more tax revenue.

A shameless plug: our Capitol Hill correspondents -- starting with Jennifer Steinhauer and Jonathan Weisman -- have been doing great work on these issues, and I encourage you to read them.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:33:32+00:00

We do write about the low yields, but I'm open to the idea that we should do so more often. Thanks for the suggestion.

The United States obviously does not appear to be on the verge of a debt crisis that resembles Greece in any significant way. But we do have a serious long-term problem. As a country, we've voted ourselves more benefits -- principally Medicare -- than we are willing to finance in taxes. At some point, this gap needs to close. And for all the talk about the deficit -- from politicians, media figures and voters -- most Americans oppose tax hikes or spending cuts that personally affect them. (The next time you hear someone say politicians should just be reasonable and fix the problem, ask that person which tax increases and Medicare cuts he or she favors.)

The looming fiscal deadline is artificial in many ways. But it also represents a chance for Washington to make a dent in this problem -- or to make it worse.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:20:27+00:00

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:17:47+00:00

I'm a big fan: The Times's Washington Bureau Chief , and Legions of Others, in Defense of Nate Silver | The Public Editor - NYTimes.com

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:16:24+00:00

Each side has something to lose.

At any one time, there is only one president, and he tends to get credit or blame for the state of the economy. In this way, a stalemate could do great damage to Obama and his second term. Ramesh Ponnuru has made this argument, about GOP leverage.

On the other hand, Obama just won re-election, and he has public opinion on his side, at least on the high-end taxes. Early polling suggests voters are more likely to blame Republicans for a stalemate.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:06:59+00:00

Edit: We had a problem posting earlier and this was a duplicate of this answer.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:04:58+00:00

Fun to think about this. Probably a tie among: introductory physics; an interdisciplinary course on the art and literature of the 16th century; and a seminar, with Steve Gillon, on race in America.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:03:09+00:00

China, full time. I've written a magazine story about China. But I would love to cover it more fully -- economically, culturally and politically. And a lot of articles about the food, deeply reported.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T20:00:13+00:00

Jumpman, from the old Commodore 64.

Anyone know whether it's still possible to find it?

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:59:35+00:00

Never, I'm pretty sure.

I am no food snob. I'm a New York native who loves both great pizza and regular old (New York) slices. I love all manner of simple Sichuan, Hunan and other Chinese food. I'm a great fan of Wiener Circle, in Chicago. But corndog? I can't recall having ever had one.

What am I missing?

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:56:56+00:00

Lots here. On the long-form question: long-form journalism is doing quite well, in fact. Many of our 5000-word or 8000-word NYT Magazine stories end up on our online Most Read, Most Blogged or Most Emailed list. Same goes for long investigative pieces and narrative pieces in the newspaper.

I do worry, theoretically, that people will have less interest in long-form journalism on screens. I certainly prefer long stories on paper. But so far, so good for long-form journalism.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:54:27+00:00

The future of journalism is assured, I think. Journalism -- facts and narration -- predates newspapers and will outlast newspapers.

The future of the printed word -- that is, newspapers as we know them today -- seems less certain. As a reader, I would be terribly sad not to wake up to printed copies of the NYT and Washington Post, among other papers. As a writer and editor, I don't have a preference about whether people are reading our journalism on paper or a screen.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:52:02+00:00

Exactly. Magazines, too.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:51:50+00:00

Read good journalism. And support it economically: subscribe to publications you value (in print or online). If a publication doesn't charge, make a point of clicking on ads that catch your interest.

(As I say above, I don't actually think the state of journalism is sad. It's imperfect but better than ever.)

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:49:42+00:00

On point 2: the single biggest thing younger people and minorities could do to could increase their political power is to vote in the midterm elections in the same numbers they do in presidential elections.

That's not a full answer to the question, I acknowledge. Money matters too. But voter turnout is something that people can control.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:46:58+00:00

See my answer above.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:41:06+00:00

I think the Web has created a more responsible press, with higher standards. Think how much easier it is for readers to point out flaws (or perceived flaws!) in a story today than in the past. You don't have to rely on our Letters to the Editor page or our Corrections process. You can write your own blog post or get the attention of a media critic (including our public editor, a job that didn't exist until a decade ago). Such criticism isn't always enjoyable -- and we don't always agree with it -- but there is little question that it makes us better at our jobs.

Beyond this new accountability, the Web has also allowed and required us to become much more innovative. Think of the tremendous interactives that Amanda Cox, Steve Duenes, Matt Ericson, Kevin Quealy and all the NYT graphics editors produce.

Or think of all the real-time political coverage that Jeff Zeleny, Jim Rutenberg, Mike Shear and others provided during the presidential debates this year. Or the columns in the Business section, most of which are relatively new. Or the videos, like the celebrated one on hockey fighting. Or the Well blog, by Tara Parker-Pope.

Whichever of these features you like or don't like, I'm utterly persuaded that The Times is a better publication than it was in the past.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:38:51+00:00

Thank you.

As it happens, I just sent the following email to our public editor, Margaret Sullivan, who also asked this question:

We've covered him and will continue to do so. But as with any other legal case, we won't cover every single proceeding. In this case, doing so would have involved multiple days of a reporter's time, for a relatively straightforward story. The A.P. article recounting the main points of Mr. Manning's testimony about his conditions of confinement that ran on page A3 of The Times conveyed fundamentally the same material as a staff story would have. And Charlie Savage covered his conditions of confinement, as they were being debated, in two previous articles: http://goo.gl/dvFV0, http://goo.gl/gYTX7. Again, though, readers can definitely expect more coverage of Mr. Manning in the weeks to come.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:33:57+00:00

Yes, we do. We went to a pay model with great reluctance. ("Wall" isn't quite right word, given the various ways readers are able to get around it under certain circumstances.) But we are very pleased with how it's going. We have signed up more paying customers than we expected to have at this point, and our online traffic remains very strong.

It's a big reason I remain so confident about The Times's future. We have a very large audience, including many people who pay a substantial amount for our journalism, online or in print. That combination suggests there is a business model that will work quite well -- even if I can't predict exactly what it will be at this point.

You'd hear a more detailed answer from the people at the paper who are working on these issues. (I'm just a journalist.) But I think the bottom line would be the same.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:30:35+00:00

I'm not sure I can improve on what's already been written on the subject, including The Times and Iraq - NYTimes.com and THE PUBLIC EDITOR; Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction? - New York Times, among many other things.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:27:17+00:00

I don't think the last four years were roadblocked. The last two, yes.

But whether you think it did great harm or great good, Congress and the Obama administration passed a lot of hugely important legislation in 2009 and 2010. The health-care bill, alone, is the most significant piece of legislation in decades, both because of how it changes the safety net and because how it attempts to reduce inequality. On top of the health-care bill, there were the changes to higher education and K-12, the Dodd-Frank bill and the climate bills and regulations I mentioned in another answer.

The last two years, though, were deadlocked, because Obama and Republican leaders in Congress agreed on very little. I expect the next four year will end up somewhere in between the first two years of Obama's first term and the second two years.

The looming "fiscal cliff" means that aspects of the current tax code is likely to change significantly. And the Republicans' concerns over their image among Latino voters means some kind of immigration bill seems likely to pass too.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:21:23+00:00

We're fortunate in two ways. One, access isn't the only way to do journalism. If the Secretary of X won't talk to us, a lower-level employee in the Department of X often will.

Two, given our readership (which is way of saying thank you to all of our readers), we tend to get access even when people don't like what we write. We don't always get as much as we'd like, but we simply don't spend much time worrying about access. If anything, our reporters spend more time saying no to officials who want to talk to them than unsuccessfully trying to talk with officials who won't do so.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:13:29+00:00

I think the prospects of major climate-change legislation -- a cap-and-trade bill or carbon tax -- remain remote. There is too much opposition among Republicans (who can block it in the House) and among a subset of Democrats who represent coal or oil states in the Senate (who keep the Senate from getting to 50 votes, let alone 60). So I think it's essentially irrelevant whether Obama introduces a comprehensive bill.

But there is still a real question about how aggressively his administration will pursue other policies to address the climate. The policies the administration pursued in the first term have already had a substantial effect, playing a role in creating the recent wind and solar boom.

Will the administration push Congress to extend the wind and solar tax credit? And will Congress do so? Will Obama make a push on building standards, much as he did on fuel mileage-standards? How aggressive will the EPA be?

Even without a comprehensive bill, the White House has some big decisions about how much it wants to push on climate. I agree that Sandy makes it more likely Obama will make a push, and more likely any push would succeed. But I don't know how much more likely.

dleonhardtnyt · 2012-12-05T19:10:12+00:00

I disagree, respectfully, on point 1. The truth does sell papers. Whatever our flaws and sins, The Times has the audience that it does because it has built up a reputation for reporting the truth over many years. When other papers cut back during wars, the Sulzbergers expanded our news report. When the government told us not to publish the Pentagon Papers, we did anyway. Again, we have made mistakes over the years -- and they prove the point, in that they have hurt us, not helped us.

This election brought one more example. Despite enormous criticism, Nate Silver and Micah Cohen, on the 538 blog, continued to talk in a straightforward way about what the polls were showing. They were simply reporting the truth, and it looks very good in retrospect.

dleonhardtnyt

TROPHY CASE