Clark Hoyt is anAmericanjournalist who was thepublic editor ofThe New York Times, serving as the "readers' representative." He was the newspaper's third public editor, or ombudsman, afterDaniel Okrent andByron Calame. His initial two-year term began on May 14, 2007, and was later extended for another year, expiring in June 2010.

Hoyt is a member ofThe Hill School class of 1960 and a 1964 graduate ofColumbia College of Columbia University. Hoyt began his journalism career in 1966 atThe Ledger. Shortly afterwards in 1968 he joined the American media companyKnight Ridder, where he was deployed to work at theDetroit Free Press as a general reporter, before progressing to become a political reporter. Indeed, Hoyt would spend most of his journalism career at Knight Ridder—except for a stint atThe Miami Herald as a Washington Correspondent during the 1970s — until its sale toThe McClatchy Company in 2006.^[1]

During the 1980s and mid-2000s, upon Hoyt's return to Knight Ridder, he filled numerous positions within the company, including business editor, managing editor, Washington news editor, and chief of the Washington bureau. Hoyt also served as Vice President of News for Knight Ridder from 1993–99.^[1]

Hoyt is also a joint 1973Pulitzer Prize winner; a prize he shares with fellow journalist Robert Boyd for their coverage of the Democratic vice presidential nomineeThomas Eagleton, and their uncovering of the electric shock treatment and powerful anti-psychotics used to treat Eagleton's ongoing mental health problems regarding his manic depression, which Eagleton tried to keep secret from theDemocratic presidential nomineeGeorge McGovern and the press.

On June 12, 2010, in his final analysis of his three-year tenure asThe New York Times' public editor, Hoyt said,^[2][3][4]

For the past three years, my assignment has been to try to help this newspaper live up to its own high journalistic standards as it covered a historic presidential election, two wars, the Great Recession, violence in the Middle East and more. I have deplored the overuse of anonymous sources, warned against the creep of opinion into news analysis and worried about the preservation of Times quality on the Internet. But, in truth, I have sometimes felt less like a keeper of the flame and more like an internal affairs cop.

Further, upon commenting about theNew York Times' continual accusations of liberal bias, Hoyt said,^[2][3]

There is no question that the editorial page is liberal and the regular columnists on the Op-Ed page are heavily weighted in that direction. There is also no question that The Times, though a national newspaper, shares the prevailing sensibilities of the city and region where it is published. It does not take creationism or intelligent design as serious alternatives to the theory of evolution. It prints the marriages and commitment ceremonies of same-sex couples. It covers art and cultural events out on the edge....But ifThe Times were really the Fox News of the left, how could you explain the investigative reporting that brought down Eliot Spitzer, New York’s Democratic governor; derailed the election campaign of his Democratic successor, David Paterson; got Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in ethics trouble; and exposed the falsehoods that Attorney GeneralRichard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat, was telling about his service record in the Vietnam era?

• Appearances onC-SPAN
  • C-SPANQ&A interview with Hoyt, July 25, 2010

• Living people
• 1942 births
• Columbia College, Columbia University alumni
• The New York Times public editors
• Miami Herald people
• Detroit Free Press people
• The Hill School alumni
• Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting winners

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• People appearing on C-SPAN