The Invention of Objectivity
When Carr Van Anda joined The New York Times as its managing editor on February 14, 1904, the temperature inside the office dropped a few degrees—or so it felt.Van Anda, age 39, was a chilly newsroom presence, a formal man who wore rimless glasses and a stickpin through his starched collars. Times reporters lived in fear of his chastening glare. They called it the “death ray.”The most famous stories about “V.A.