Next time you hear New York Times editor Bill Keller claim that newspapers are uniquely situated to do the “hard, expensive, sometimes dangerous work [of] quality journalism,” remember that his reporter broke the story of Spitzer’s dalliances with prostitutes. But also remember the time his reporter e-mailed the Gov. Paterson’s flack to request permission to call Paterson’s former mistress.
This first installment documents the shocking amount of control that Keller’s Times allowed Anderson, a former Good Morning America producer and PR veteran of the Clinton White House, to exercise over his paper’s coverage. After bringing Anderson’s world down around her head by breaking the story, Times reporters previewed portions of their stories with her before publication, asked for her permission before contacting sources, and let her tell them how to characterize its reporting in the paper.
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The NYT is an advocacy organization that dabbles in journalism, not the other way around.
WisCon on November 4, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Dang….asking permission to publish something?
ramrants on November 4, 2009 at 12:19 PM
No one at Fox needs/gets permission to say anything.
Imagine if a conservative would have been in the same pickle…
Schadenfreude on November 4, 2009 at 12:26 PM
Wow… am I that naive? I assume the worst about the media but dayum. Even I thought the NYT had some credibility… I just saw State Of Play the intrepid reporters braving danger to bring out the unvarnished truth. Hell the NYT is doing the varnishing. I guess they’ll be using gmail instead of government email next time.
Theworldisnotenough on November 4, 2009 at 12:27 PM
State-controlled media, indeed.
JammieWearingFool on November 4, 2009 at 12:30 PM
I had the same response…I knew they worked with the “party” to get the info, but I didn’t know thew used their story as also the editor.
Can you imagine if Woodward would have done this with Nixon? But then LBJ and Kennedy probably had the same relationship, also Clinton.
This is over the top…but it won’t matter, NYT is the NYT and they will keep on supporting the dems.
right2bright on November 4, 2009 at 12:30 PM
Never forget them dropping the ACORN story as soon as it was obvious it would hurt the Dems’ chances in ‘08. The NYT setting the industry standards for selling out.
snaggletoothie on November 4, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Wow, if the Spitzer emails are this good..I’d like to see the NYT’s emails between The White House.
Caper29 on November 4, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Even liberals have to be troubled at the level of complicity with so-called journalists and political parties of any stripe.
Queen0fCups on November 4, 2009 at 2:44 PM
Ignoring the fact that Woodword worked for the Washington Post, the larger point is that covering for politicians with a (D) after the name is SOP in the cage-liner industry, exemplified by the fact that though the Johnson & Kennedy administrations has engaged in precisely the same behaviours, it was obviously a constitutional crisis when Nixon did it.
Bleh, frankly these turds can’t swirl down the drain fast enough for me.
fronclynne on November 4, 2009 at 2:45 PM