A Hole in One Paper’s Actions   

After the New York Times killed two sports columns that alluded to the paper's editorial stance on whether Augusta National Golf Club, host of the Masters tournament, should admit women, journalists quickly called the Times' decision a major bogey.

Just days after New York's Daily News reported how the Times treated columns by Dave Anderson and Harvey Araton, the paper reversed itself, almost contritely, and ran the columns, edited, on Sunday, December 8.

Here's how various media weighed in on the fracas:

"You don't do that to people you hire to give their opinions. It's indefensible in journalism."
-Fox News Channel media commentator Eric Burns, quoted in New York's Daily News

"This was the Gray Lady in all her harrumphing self-importance and oak-paneled phoniness."
-Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander

"You don't spike or kill opinion because it differs from something that may or may not have run on an editorial page. I never thought that kind of thing would happen at the New York Times, and that it did is absolutely shocking."
-Sandy Padwe, an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, quoted in the Los Angeles Times

"A lot of people in the newsroom feel that this has been an embarrassing episode. I've never felt under pressure to conform to the paper's editorial policies, and it is sad for people to get the impression that we are under such pressures."
-Floyd Norris, New York Times chief financial columnist, quoted in the Times

"They didn't say it in so many words, but they obviously realized they made a mistake, and I'm gratified that they're big enough and good enough to rectify it."
-New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson, quoted in USA Today