The story of Public Editors at The New York Times has been a little like Goldie Locks and the Three Bears. The first one, Daniel Okrent, had too much fun with the column. His succeesor, Byron Calame had too little. The current Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, is just right.

This week he writes about the “scandal” du jour: The New York Times giving Bill Kristol a one-year contract to be an op-ed columnist. In the two weeks in between the Times announcement and Kristol’s actual first column, blogger mayhem ensued, with everyone being outraged for no real reason.

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• The Coop, Jodie Foster "Out-ed." Entire world feigns surprise.

• NYT's public editor Byron Calame wins the Bart Richards Award for royally screwing over Bill Keller and Arthur Sulzberger Jr.

• New, super-secret Portfolio cover is…a disappointing NYC skyline. Yawn.

• One of the Google employee's has a 3-foot python who can't be contained! Computer programmers, so hot right now.

• Business Week wonders how Sam Zell will revamp the Tribune with so much debt. Incredibly, Sam Zell just had the exact same thought.

• And yet, inexplicably, Broad and Burkle still want in.

• Rachel Marsden, hailed by some as the next Ann Coulter, is a 31 year-old Canadian and a "once-admitted stalker."

• Meanwhile, Dana Perino, who's currently filling in for Tony Snow, is described as "an airline ticket agent who keeps smiling as irate customers demand to know why their flight has been canceled."

• Barney Calame, ombudsmen are "boring and ineffectual." Well, obviously.

• But that doesn't stop Slate's Jack Shafer from suggesting Calame's replacement. (Hint: It's not Jack Shafer.)

• Write or wrong, the Houston Chronicle on Anna Nicole Smith: "the model could barely right a sentence."

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Word has it Byron "Barney" Calame's term as NYT public editor will end when his contract is up in May, and exec editor Bill Keller has reportedly decided to appoint a replacement. Calame, described by the NYO as "not entirely unlike Snuffleupagus," already had substantial reason to suspect his contract was in danger of not being renewed when Keller spoke out publicly—in early January—about the need to reevaluate things as "Barney's term enters the home stretch."

And naturally, the Times broke the news to Calame gently, with a typical show of class and integrity:

Calame tells Irin Carmon he wrote executive editor Bill Keller asking him how to plan for continuity. Keller responded that he was weighing "the whether and the who," and invited suggestions from Calame. The public editor passed. His last day is May 8, and the final column will run April 22.

Ouch. No word yet on Snuffleupagus' next gig (or the identity of his successor) but we'll be interested to see how the next public editor holds up under media scrutiny and, of course, Bill Keller's watchful eye.

While Byron "Barney" Calame, the New York Times' public editor, waits to hear whether his contract will be renewed this Spring, the Huffington Post and the New York Observer debate his qualifications as well as the underlying importance of his position.

As we told you last week, the NYO broke the news that Calame's job could be in jeopardy, and piped in with their vote, telling Calame—in no uncertain terms—to go back to Sesame Street:

Mr. Okrent [the Times' former public editor] was a sharp critic who raised hackles and then won respect during his 18-month term. In contrast, Mr. Calame has been a bit more like that other Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur—and not entirely unlike Snuffleupagus, the once-invisible creature of Sesame Street. The readers were Big Bird, and we could see and hear him—but did he exist to anyone inside The Times?

Now, Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post is weighing in with her take, insisting that Calame's bad relationship with the Times' top editor and publisher is indicative of his objectivity:

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Jayson who? The NYT is hoping you'll have forgotten that guy's name by now, as it gets ready to effectively dismiss the position of public editor, which began in the Jayson Blair fallout with Dan Okrent leading the charge of headmaster.

When Barney Calame's two-year tenure expires in May, New York Times exec editor Bill Keller may or may not give the job to someone new. Because the whole breathing down Times staffers' necks is so 2004.

“Over the next couple of months, as Barney’s term enters the home stretch, I’ll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur,” meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times’ executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

Naturally, everyone but Calame's assistant Joseph Plambeck is eager to hear that the jig is up — that there will be no more inches developed to chronicling what reporters are doing wrong. That, and Sulzberger & Co. can finally reclaim some editorial space to do some more preaching.

Somebody get Jack Shafer on the phone … the Times' public editor Byron Calame is making an ass out himself again, and we expect at least 1,000 words out of Slate on this one. From the Media Mob of the New York Observer:

New York Times public editor Byron Calame, writing May 21 on the paper's disputed coverage of possible standing-room travel on airlines:

And so, as often happens with nearly unbelievable stories, this one took on a life of its own. The concept grabbed headlines in scores of publications around the world and was even incorporated into illustrations on the cover of The New Yorker and on The Times's Op-Ed page.

Off the Record, writing May 3 about the Times' disputed coverage of possible standing-room travel on airlines:

In the week between the original story and the correction, the standing-room claim took on a life of its own. The May 8 New Yorker, appearing May 1, featured a cover painting by Bruce McCall of an airliner with standing-room seats…. On May 1, The Times ran an Op-Ed illustration by the Open design studio spoofing the standing-room concept.

What was that about bloggers and original reporting again?

Who Will Public-Edit the Public Editor? [Media Mob, New York Observer]

After a glorious bloodbath in which Byron Calame lost most of his extremities to the persuasive sword of Jack Shafer, we realize that we are not the only ones who don't care where the New York Times gets its stories. (Well, except for when they get their stories from their archives — and even then we only care because of how ridiculously easy it is for their "unusually intelligent, well-educated" readers to scarf it down.)

Also, we learn that because of blogs and Jim Romenesko, Calame's interest in his own paper is over-played, and a public editor is more or less unnecessary.

Calame's bloodless performance convinces some (Timothy Noah for one) that the Times public editor slot should be scrapped. A generation ago, the job of beating the press fell to two journalism reviews, a few alternative newspaper columnists, and several hundred pressure groups. Today, says Noah, nobody who navigates to Romenesko or tours the blogs thinks of the press and the New York Times as underexamined institutions.

Our hope would be that no media outlet would go underexamined in this huge pool of media bloggers and critics who spend their days asking, "how could there possibly be a purpose to the existence of anyone besides myself?" To which we remind our dear friends of the need for other people, no matter how seemingly useless, to exist.

If there is nobody left at the Times to make a show out of examining the paper, there would be nobody left for Jack Shafer to destroy in 1,000 words or less. And then what will we have left to live for?

The Public Editor as Duffer [Jack Shafer, Slate]