NPR: The New Republic Reports on Times' Reporting

The New Republic Reports on Times' Reporting

This is all very post-modern.

A short while ago, The New Republic published an article on its website that details how The New York Times went about preparing its story on the connection between Sen. John McCain and a lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. "The story is filled with awkward journalistic moves," says writer Gabriel Sherman, "... and departs from the Times' usual authoritative voice."

What happened? The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn't. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.

The TNR piece also reports that McCain himself called Keller in December to deny the allegations. And it says the decision when to publish the story turned into another chapter in a long running N.Y. Times feud - New York versus Washington.

After many stops and starts - including being leaked about on the Drudge Report in December, which some people charge may have forced the Times to eventually publish the story -- it went up on their website last night. In a conversation with Sherman today, Keller said, ""Our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready. 'Ready' means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats."

Sherman ends by saying the story may have ultimately "provided the Times' critics with a few caveats too many."

5:09 PM ET | 02-21-2008 | permalink

Comments

I read the article and found it lacked any credible evidence on which to tar the reputation of a public figure. The Times tried to 'finesse' the obviously weak allegation by making it about McCain's sanctimoniousness, so he is damned either way, possibly both. This is a story fit only for the tabloids and the New York Times and NPR should be ashamed of themselves for running it.

Sent by Kevin L. | 5:43 PM ET | 02-21-2008

Kevin apparently cannot sort out that
pressuring a federal agency in 1989 to
allow a thieving campaign contributor to
take the taxpayers for 3.5 billion
dollars already demonstrated that McCain is for sale and that McCain applied
the "tar" to himself long ago.

Sent by Marc Allen | 9:53 PM ET | 02-21-2008

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