Executive Editor Bill Keller Sneers at Media Reporters as 'Oxpeckers' to His Magnificent Wildebeest

admin — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:33:00 +0000

Executive editor Bill Keller has a funny way of expressing humility. His metaphor - that media reporters are "oxpeckers" while he is by inference a massive African mammal - sounded more than a little haughty: "Seriously, my own wife isn't as interested in what I do all day as John Koblin, Michael Calderone, Jacob Bernstein and the rest of our obsessive chroniclers. These guys always remind me of oxpeckers, those little birds that ride on the backs of large African mammals and eat their ticks."

Tim Graham

Times executive editor Bill Keller has a funny way of expressing humility. Slate's Tom Scocca found he expressed surprise that media reporters are obsessed with his newspaper, so much so that one writer live-blogged his recent appearance on NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook. But his metaphor - that media reporters are "oxpeckers" while he is by inference a massive African mammal - sounded more than a little haughty: