'NY Times' Publisher's Weird Priorities

Just when people are starting to give Arthur Sulzberger Jr. the benefit of the doubt, he goes and says something clueless.

Esquire asked the New York Times publisher what he considers "the biggest challenge facing journalism right now." His answer:

There has been a significant curtailment of First Amendment rights, inhibiting journalists' ability to provide America with the news we need and have a right to know. This is why we are working to reintroduce the federal shield and Open Government legislation, which will enable reporters to protect their sources and cover our public officials far more effectively.

Really, Mr. Sulzberger? Refighting the battle over Judy Miller's questionable anonymity promises is more important than, say, figuring out what to do about the collapse of the newspaper industry's economic model -- a collapse that some believe threatens the existence of your own paper in the astonishingly near term? You're more worried about the handful of American journalists who get threatened with jail time each year than with the thousands who are being driven out of the profession by layoffs and closures? Do you think maybe the dying out of foreign and Washington bureaus might also make it tough to hold our government to account?

Strange.