Under the print headline "Labor Unions Gain Foothold At News Sites," my edition of the New York Times reported, "Members of the news staffs at Vice Media, ThinkProgress and HuffPost followed suit, organizing unions that their companies recognized and that subsequently ratified contracts."
I raised my eyebrows at the Times description of ThinkProgress as a "News Site" with a "news staff." Without appending a formal correction, the online version of the story carries a different headline: "Unions Are Gaining a Foothold at Digital Media Companies." And in the text of the article itself, the word "news" has been changed, so that the sentence that caused me to raise an eyebrow now reads: "Members of the editorial staffs at Vice Media, ThinkProgress and HuffPost followed suit, organizing unions that their companies recognized and that subsequently ratified contracts."
ThinkProgress' "about" page says "ThinkProgress is a news site dedicated to providing our readers with rigorous reporting and analysis from a progressive perspective. Founded in 2005, ThinkProgress is an editorially independent project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund."
Personally, I'm all for an extremely broad definition of the word "news" that includes content produced by 501(c) 4 advocacy groups such as the Center for American Progress Action Fund. At least ThinkProgress discloses its "progressive perspective" rather than pretending to be something it isn't, as the incoming publisher of the Times, A.G. Sulzberger, attempted in a recent interview with the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick:
D.R.: For many in the general public, the New York Times is seen as a liberal newspaper. True or false?
A.G.S.: False. And I can send you all the hate mail that I've gotten from our aggressive coverage of the Clinton campaign.
D.R.: O.K., but do you really think that it's possible to argue that the New York Times, by and large, isn't both populated by people who are left of center, and that the tone of the newspaper isn't left of center?
Anyway, it's amusing to watch the editing changes disclosing some internal discussion or thought at the Times about precisely what meets the definition of "news." The writer whose byline is on the Times article, Matthew Sedacca, graduated from college in 2015 and from Columbia Journalism School in 2016, according to his online CV.