Daniel Okrent takes it on the chin at the NYTimes

For essentially telling it like it is:

Two weeks ago, my column on The Times’s arts listings brought gratitude from those who agreed with me and anger and derision, leavened with a few reasonable points of argument, from those who did not. I wouldn’t expect it any other way. But among those who pounced on me here at the paper were some who were provoked by my use of “glib,” “arrogance” and “condescending” to portray the attitude of the culture editors.

Those who took me to task included some Times editors and writers who agreed with my position on the listings changes, but found my choice of words indelicate. They may be right. If I were a better writer I would have followed the ancient dictum “show, don’t tell” – let readers come to their own conclusions instead of leading them with my own loaded characterizations. (While I’m in garment-rending mode, I want to correct a mistaken impression I may have left: when I wrote that “at least two full Sunday pages are ready to be conscripted for the cause” of revised listings, that was and is my opinion, and not the position of the editors.)

Sometimes, though, telling can be better than showing, especially when the showing comes as a shock – for instance, when the editors make major changes in what they’ve been giving readers for decades, and explain neither what they’re doing nor why. Instead, angry readers inspire a public editor to take their side, and he (according to the culture editors, at least) proceeds to misrepresent the paper’s intentions.

This is the same guy who confirmed the suspicions of many a media watcher several months ago when he admitted that the NYTimes was a liberally biased. I’m sure he took quite a bit of heat for that, too. Apparently to some at the NYTimes, the truth really hurts.