Alessandra Stanley

Alessandra Maria Stanley is an American journalist. In 2003 she became the television critic for "The New York Times". She was previously co-chief of the paper's Moscow bureau.http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content?030616fr_archive05] She was also Rome bureau chief. She worked previously as a correspondent for Time magazine.

Controversies

There have been some complaints regarding the accuracy of her reporting. [ [http://www.showbizdata.com/contacts/picknews.cfm/39517/THE_COLLECTED_CORRECTIONS_OF_ALESSANDRA_STANLEY The Collected Corrections of Alessandra Stanley] ] [ [http://www.gawker.com/news/alessandra-stanley/index.php Gawker.com news and gossip blog entries on Alessandra Stanley] ] Her column of September 5, 2005 drew particular attention. Discussing coverage of relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, Stanley wrote that Geraldo Rivera "nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety." [Stanley, Alessandra. "Reporters Turn From Deference to Outrage." "The New York Times", 5 September 2005.] Rivera complained that the story was inaccurate and threatened to sue. The executive editor of the "Times", Bill Keller, reviewed the videotape on which Stanley based her account, and concluded that no correction needed to be run, a decision for which he was faulted by the paper's Public Editor, Byron Calame. [ Calame, Byron. "Even Geraldo Deserves a Fair Shake." "The New York Times", 25 September 2005.]

Stanley is credited with introducing the word "blondenfreude", in reference to Martha Stewart. [Stanley, Alessandra; and Hays, Constance L. "Martha Stewart's To-Do List May Include Image Polishing." "The New York Times", 23 June 2002.] . She also became known for discussing the impact of "The Colbert Report" and its introduction of the word "truthiness", although she initially misreported the word as "trustiness", [Stanley, Alessandra. "THE TV WATCH: Bringing Out The Absurdity Of the News." "The New York Times", 25 October 2005.] for which the Times later ran a correction. She discussed "truthiness" in a later article (properly identifying it this time), as one of eight words that had captured the zeitgeist of the year 2005. [cite news|first=Monica|last=Davey|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0E17F93E540C768EDDAB0994DD404482|title= 2005: IN A WORD; CUT & RUN|work=New York Times|date=2005-12-25|accessdate=2007-10-09]

In 2006, Stanley wrote a review of the "Path to 9/11" television movie in which she stated that the portrayal was "even-handed," and backed the film's position that Clinton was too distracted by the Lewinsky affair to catch Bin Laden. She cited the 9/11 Commission as the source for this contention. [Stanley, Alessandra. "THE TV WATCH: Laying Blame And Passing The Buck, Dramatized." "The New York Times", 8 September 2006.] However, the 9/11 Commission had actually concluded that the scandal did not distract the Clinton administration from the terrorist threat. "The New York Times" issued a correction in the Sat., September 9, 2006 edition of the paper.Fact|date=October 2007

Conservative critics such as Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly have accused her of biased reporting. [cite web|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMbJLEyVkVE|title=O'Reilly: Anti-Christian NY Times Alessandra Stanley Exposed|publisher=YouTube|accessdate=2007-10-09]

Personal

Stanley is a daughter of Timothy W. Stanley, an authority on defense policy who served in the 1960's as assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara for NATO force planning and then as a defense adviser in the United States mission to NATO,Pace, Eric. "Timothy W. Stanley, 69, Expert On Defense Policy and Strategies." "The New York Times", 23 September 1997.] and Nadia Leon Stanley.

Stanley was previously married to Michael Specter," Michael Specter Is Wed To Alessandra Stanley." "The New York Times", 24 April 1988.] a former reporter for the "Washington Post", "The New York Times" and "The New Yorker".

Stanley is a 1977 graduate of Harvard University where her uncle was a trustee.

Among Stanley's close friends at the Times are Jill Abramson and Maureen Dowd. Both are mentioned prominently in the New York Magazine article, "The Redhead and the Gray Lady," by Ariel Levy. [ [http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/14946/ Levy, Ariel. "The Redhead and the Gray Lady." "New York Magazine", 7 November 2005.] Accessed 2 July 2007.]

She lives in New York City with her daughter Emma and nephews Timothy and Mickey

Notes

External links

* [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/alessandra_stanley/index.html?8qa Alessandra Stanley articles on "New York Times" website] - registration required
* [http://www.timeswatch.org/topicindex/S/stanley_alessandra/welcome.asp 2003 / 2004 Alessandra Stanley topic index] - TimesWatch.org, a Media Research Center project dedicated to "documenting and exposing the liberal political agenda of the "New York Times"