By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer
Andrew Sullivan, the confrontational conservative columnist, has been attempting the high-wire act of writing for the New York Times while frequently whacking the Times for liberal bias on his Web site.
Now the tightrope has snapped.
Sullivan, who once wrote a biweekly column for the New York Times Magazine, says he has been "barred indefinitely from writing any more" for the magazine. The popular Weblog writer says the directive came from Executive Editor Howell Raines.
"Not writing for the New York Times is a better fate than not writing what I believe on my blog," Sullivan says by e-mail.
A Times spokesman had no comment despite repeated requests, and Times Magazine Editor Adam Moss did not return a phone call.
Sullivan, perhaps the country's most prominent gay journalist, delivers strong opinions each day on his Andrewsullivan.com site. A major theme is what he sees as the liberal tilt of the mainstream press, and he regularly accuses the Times of being unfair to President Bush or favoring the Democrats.
After one front-page story referred to "rising criticism" of Bush's Middle East policy, Sullivan wrote: "Where's the rising tide of criticism? Are the Times' reporters referring to their own editorial pages? This line has been peddled now for weeks in the Times' 'news' columns."
In another posting, while calling the Times "the best paper in the world," he said of its coverage of the media's Florida recount project: "If it keeps blaring non-stories like this to appease its leftist Manhattan base, and maintains its close to unanimous chorus of editorial and op-ed hostility to President Bush, it will become less authoritative. People like me who care about it and groan about some of its obvious news bias will simply stop reading it."
Sullivan also mounted something of a crusade against liberal Times columnist Paul Krugman for accepting consulting fees from Enron before joining the newspaper.
A contributor to the Times since his days as the New Republic's editor in the early 1990s, Sullivan eventually got a contract and his work was prominently featured by the magazine, at least in one case on the cover. The contract had lapsed recently, but Sullivan had finished one essay and had another one assigned when the paper told him that his services were no longer required.
"If, like me, you both write for the mainstream media and also snarl at it on a regular basis, some editors can take revenge and cut you off," he wrote on his Web site. "Most of the time, people in big media, being journalists, don't mind criticism, especially from a piddling one-man blog. But others take offense, and you get canned."
As for Raines, Sullivan wrote: "My presence in the Times, I'm told, makes him 'uncomfortable,' and I am off limits for the indefinite future. A great sadness to me, but completely his editorial prerogative and, given the sharpness of some of my broadsides, understandable."
Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, calls the decision "a loss for the Times," saying: "I thought Andrew's stuff really brightened up the magazine. I don't always agree with him but he's always interesting."
While the paper's move is "understandable in human terms," Lowry says, "the Times is such a huge institution that you'd think they'd be above that."
Sullivan's opinions also cost him his weekly "TRB" column in the New Republic, where he is still listed as a contributor. During the 2000 campaign he assailed Al Gore, a longtime friend of owner Martin Peretz, who at one point complained about Sullivan's "fevered" and "absurd" attacks. Sullivan also wrote on his Web site that the New Republic "has now sadly all but surrendered to the left of the party." Editor Peter Beinart began writing the TRB column last fall.
In disclosing the Times's decision, Sullivan told his readers: "When you bite the hand that feeds you, sometimes you'll get a good slapping. But don't worry. I'll keep biting."