The soon to be former executive editor of The New York Times, Bill Keller, announced that he is ending his magazine column for the paper in September after just six months.

Keller’s column generated considerable attention, particularly one in which he criticized the content aggregation by the Huffington Post as being little more than kitten videos with a “left-wing soundtrack.”

That earned the scorn of Arianna Huffington who fired back saying that Keller had actually aggregated an idea from her and not vice-versa.

Keller also had written recently complaining about the number of requests from Times’ employees to take time off to write an ever increasing number of books that he thought were of questionable value.

As to why Keller was calling it quits so soon, he told Women’s Wear Daily’s John Kolbin in an email that “The magazine column has been fun — and I’ve loved being part of Hugo’s relaunch — but op-ed has greater license to have opinions, and a day-before deadline.”

But the real reason may be something else altogether.

Kolbin points out that the correction rate on Keller’s columns was an astonishing 41.6%, with one column requiring two corrections.

The addition of Keller to the revamped NYT Magazine was intended to put a shine on the publication, but instead his blunt columns with frequent errors brought the kind of attention it could have done without.

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About the author

Don Irvine
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.

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