Robin Toner, NY Times Reporter, Is Dead at 54

[babylonsister]

Robin Toner, Times Reporter, Is Dead at 54

By TODD S. PURDUM
Published: December 12, 2008

Robin Toner, who was the first woman to be the national political correspondent of The New York Times and who had a significant hand in the coverage of five presidential elections, innumerable Congressional and gubernatorial campaigns and the great legislative debates of the day, died early Friday at her home in Washington. She was 54.

Jamie Rose for The New York Times

Robin Toner at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in December 2006.

The cause was complications of colon cancer, her family said.

In a career of nearly 25 years at The Times, and in an age of increasing specialization, Ms. Toner reported authoritatively on almost every domestic issue, whether it was taxes, welfare, Social Security, immigration or health-care policy.

And in a craft in which small errors are commonplace and bigger mistakes a regular occupational hazard, Ms. Toner devised a meticulous personal method for checking and re-checking names, dates, facts and figures in her own raw copy, a step few reporters take. As a result: only half a dozen published corrections over the years, on more than 1,900 articles with her byline.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/obituaries/12toner.html?_r=2&hp

[mmonk]

1. I haven't checked my Times this morning.

Thanks for the information.

[Berry Cool]

2. I never knew her, but I mourn her because the world lost a writer who fact-checked herself.

That really is a rare thing indeed. It's been my experience that many writers regard checking things like names, dates, facts and figures as "tedious" and "boring" and "uncreative"; thus, it can be left solely to the responsbility of the editor(s) to make sure their basic facts are correct. They assume editors are dull, uncreative people who love nothing better than anally retentively checking the facts that writers didn't bother to check; hence, they make great "janitors" for mopping up after sloppy/lazy writers.

It appears that Ms. Toner actually took personal responsibility and pride in making sure she got the little stuff and the big stuff right. For that alone, the world should miss her.