Prob'ly the NYT's Pinch Sulzberger thinks it's none of our goddam beeswax why he shitcanned Exec Ed Jill Abramson (with UPDATE)

NYT caption: "Dean Baquet addressing the Times staff in the newsroom Wednesday afternoon after he was named as the new executive editor."

by Ken

Are you wondering why Jill Abramson was summarily fired after three years as the top editor of the New York Times? The New Yorker's Ken Auletta has gathered together everything he could find out ("Why Jill Abramson Was Fired"), and while it's all extremely interesting, it sure doesn't seem to me to add up to a convulsive move like this very public, very unapologetic, and yet totally unexplained shitcanning. I'm relieved to find that it doesn't seem so to washingtonpost.com media maven Erik Wemple either ("New York Times publisher Sulzberger fights back, weakly")

One point we have to take for granted is the NYT publisher "Pinch" Sulzberger (aka the Juniorest Arthur Sulzberger) had to have been prepared for a firestorm. A change of bottoms in the paper's executive-editor chair is always a huge deal, even when it comes about through age-mandated retirement of the incumbent. When it comes to a firing like this, after a mere three years on the job, well, the guy would have to be a moron not to be prepared to have the entire media universe converge on him expecting, you know, some explanation.


POSSIBILITY: PINCH REALLY IS A MORON?

Remember, he became publisher of the paper at 41 in 1992, and in the 22 years since, he has, well, grown 22 years older. Maybe he's the George W. Bush of the Sulzberger dynasty?

As to the unexpectedness and in-plain-sight, execution-style brutality of the firing, just listen to Ken Auletta:

At the annual City University Journalism School dinner, on Monday, Dean Baquet, the managing editor of the New York Times, was seated with Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the paper’s publisher. At the time, I did not give a moment’s thought to why Jill Abramson, the paper’s executive editor, was not at their table. Then, at 2:36 P.M. on Wednesday, an announcement from the Times hit my e-mail, saying that Baquet would replace Abramson, less than three years after she was appointed the first woman in the top job. Baquet will be the first African-American to lead the Times.

Fellow-journalists and others scrambled to find out what had happened. Sulzberger had fired Abramson, and he did not try to hide that. In a speech to the newsroom on Wednesday afternoon, he said, “I chose to appoint a new leader of our newsroom because I believe that new leadership will improve some aspects …” Abramson chose not to attend the announcement, and not to pretend that she had volunteered to step down.

POSSIBILITY: WAS THERE A MONEY GAP?

Auletta reported yesterday:

Several weeks ago, I’m told, Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect. Sulzberger is known to believe that the Times, as a financially beleaguered newspaper, needed to retreat on some of its generous pay and pension benefits; Abramson, who spent much of her career at the Wall Street Journal, had been at the Times for far fewer years than Keller, which accounted for some of the pension disparity. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said that Jill Abramson’s total compensation as executive editor “was directly comparable to Bill Keller’s”—though it was not actually the same. I was also told by another friend of Abramson’s that the pay gap with Keller was only closed after she complained. But, to women at an institution that was once sued by its female employees for discriminatory practices, the question brings up ugly memories. Whether Abramson was right or wrong, both sides were left unhappy. A third associate told me, “She found out that a former deputy managing editor”—a man—“made more money than she did” while she was managing editor. “She had a lawyer make polite inquiries about the pay and pension disparities, which set them off.”

Today Pinch pushed back harder on the pay-gap issue, in a staff memo that was reproduced in full by Capital New York:

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to you because I am concerned about the misinformation that has been widely circulating in the media since I announced Jill Abramson’s departure yesterday. I particularly want to set the record straight about Jill’s pay as Executive Editor of The Times.

Pinch -- no moron he, right?

It is simply not true that Jill’s compensation was significantly less than her predecessors. Her pay is comparable to that of earlier executive editors. In fact, in 2013, her last full year in the role, her total compensation package was more than 10% higher than that of her predecessor, Bill Keller, in his last full year as Executive Editor, which was 2010. It was also higher than his total compensation in any previous year.

Comparisons between the pensions of different executive editors are difficult for several reasons. Pensions are based upon years of service with the Company. Jill’s years of service were significantly fewer than those of many of her predecessors. Secondly, as you may know, pension plans for all managers at The New York Times were frozen in 2009. But this and all other pension changes at the Company have been applied without any gender bias and Jill was not singled out or differentially disadvantaged in any way.

Compensation played no part whatsoever in my decision that Jill could not remain as executive editor. Nor did any discussion about compensation. The reason – the only reason – for that decision was concerns I had about some aspects of Jill’s management of our newsroom, which I had previously made clear to her, both face-to-face and in my annual assessment.

This Company is fully committed to equal treatment of all its employees, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation or any other characteristic. We are working hard to live up to that principle in every part of our organization. I am satisfied that we fully lived up to that commitment with regard to Jill.

Arthur

Since Abramson so far isn't talking, we don't have confirmation of what seems likely from Auletta's reporting: that she sure as hell thought there was a pay gender gap.

If we want a clue as to why Abramson was shitcanned, Pinch gives us this:

"The reason – the only reason – for that decision was concerns I had about some aspects of Jill’s management of our newsroom, which I had previously made clear to her, both face-to-face and in my annual assessment."

"Some aspects of Jill's management of our newsroom." Which of course he's not at liberty to discuss. Since, again, we aren't hearing from Abramson, we don't have her view of what Pinch may have "previously made clear to her, both face-to-face and in my annual assessment."

This sounds deeply fishy to me, but let's go back to what Auletta reported.


TROUBLE WITH NYT CO. CEO MARK THOMPSON?

Sulzberger’s frustration with Abramson was growing. She had already clashed with the company’s C.E.O., Mark Thompson, over native advertising and the perceived intrusion of the business side into the newsroom. Publicly, Thompson and Abramson denied that there was any tension between them, as Sulzberger today declared that there was no church-state—that is, business-editorial—conflict at the Times. A politician who made such implausible claims might merit a front-page story in the Times. The two men and Abramson clearly did not get along.

TROUBLE WITH THEN-MANAGING EDITOR
(NOW EXECUTIVE EDITOR) DEAN BAQUET?

Not much seems to have filtered out to the outside world about what Auletta now describes as "the fractious relationship" between Abramson and her No. 2, Managing Editor Dean Baquet, who now occupies her old chair, but we're getting indications that on the inside this was well-known, and not exactly subtle. It's worth noting that Baquet was one of the people who didn't get the exec ed job back when Abramson did.

A third issue surfaced, too: Abramson was pushing to hire a deputy managing editor to oversee the digital side of the Times. She believed that she had the support of Sulzberger and Thompson to recruit this deputy, and her supporters say that the plan was for the person in this position to report to Baquet. Baquet is a popular and respected figure in the newsroom, and he had appeared, for the most part, to get along with Abramson. (I was told, however, that, at a recent dinner with Sulzberger, Baquet said he found her hard to work with.) He is also someone whom Sulzberger passed over when he chose Abramson. But Baquet apparently felt that he hadn’t been consulted, and, according to two sources, expressed his concerns to Sulzberger. He had also reportedly been approached by Bloomberg about a job there. (Baquet has not yet responded to a request for comment; neither has Abramson.)

In a reflection of the fractious relationship that Baquet and others had with Abramson, the Times reported that Baquet, speaking to the newsroom after his appointment, “praised Ms. Abramson for teaching him ‘the value of great ambition’ and then added that John Carroll, whom he worked for at The Los Angeles Times, ‘told me that great editors can also be humane editors.’ ”

THEN THERE'S ABRAMSON'S "BRUSQUENESS"

We always hear, of course, about how Jill A can be "brusque." Back to Auletta:

The reason Sulzberger originally hesitated to appoint Abramson as executive editor was a worry about her sometimes brusque manner. As I wrote in my Profile of Abramson, others in the newsroom, including some women, had the same concern. But, although there are always complaints about the Times’ supposed “liberal” bias, or its preoccupation with certain stories, Abramson got high marks for the investigative stories that she championed. At a time when Bloomberg News pulled the plug on an investigation of corruption and the princelings in China, Abramson pushed the Times to do more, even after her reporters came under pressure in China. Even though she thought she was politely asking about the pay discrepancy and about the role of the business side, and that she had a green light from management to hire a deputy to Baquet, the decision to terminate her was made. Sulzberger met with her last Friday, and reportedly told her that it was time to make “a change.”

Now it doesn't seem impossible to me that "brusqueness" might be held against a male top editor. It just seems likelier that it might be a near-to-hanging offense against a female top editor.


NOW IF YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME . . .

. . . that you see grounds here for a firing, well, you're seeing something I don't. And I'm pretty astonished that Pinch didn't seem to think he had any need to be ready with a public explanation -- or, for that matter, even an explanation for his own staff -- beyond this mysterious business of "some aspects of Jill's management of our newsroom."

All I get here is that Pinch didn't like Jill, and Mark Thompson and Dean Baquet didn't like Jill, and Baquet -- who has supposedly been approached by Bloomberg -- has been telling Pinch that Jill is difficult to work with. Is there something there? Of the "either she goes or I go" variety?


AS I MENTIONED, ERIK WEMPLE IS STUMPED TOO

"As any crisis communications consultant will note," Erik begins his piece today, "a company is in a crisis when it’s forced to publicly compare the compensation levels of key departed executives." Then he sketches the background, takes note of Pinch's Memo today, and has no more luck than I do extracting from it any sense of what's really going on in Pinch's head.

Here we go again with the management-aspects line. In his address to staffers yesterday, Sulzberger said, “I choose to appoint a new leader for our newsroom because I believe that new leadership will improve some aspects of the management of the newsroom.” So that’s the default explanation, language that the Times is using as a catch-all response to the question: Why?

It’s not good enough, either. Though Abramson by many accounts irritated people and wasn’t always the most cuddly manager, listen to what Sulzberger said yesterday about how the Times performed under her watch:

It is not about the quality of our journalism, which in my mind has never been better.

Jill did an outstanding job in preserving and extending the level of excellence of our news report during her time as executive editor and, before that, as managing editor and Washington bureau chief. She’s an accomplished journalist who contributed mightily to our reputation as the world’s most important news provider.

A chasm hangs between that evaluation of Abramson’s central mission and the treatment accorded to her yesterday — a ruthless and shocking discarding, that is. Though Sulzberger has stated that he won’t go into detail about the specifics of his decision, despite the memo on pay, a good question might be this: How did Abramson’s deficiencies in “some aspects” of newsroom management compromise the news product?

And Erik concludes with this tweet:



To be continued, I imagine.


UPDATE: MORE ON THE STORY

Ken Auletta has already brought forth a follow-up, "Jill Abramson and the Times: What Went Wrong?," which notably amplifies and focuses all of the above themes without, as far as I can see, explaining anything. (One interesting tidbit: Apparently Jill A was so persuaded that she was on the wrong side of a gender pay gap -- clearly she wasn't persuaded by the arguments put forth by the NYT's damage-control flack and by Pinch himself) that she hired a lawyer to pursue the matter. On the side of the NYT high command, this seems to have been part of a "pattern" of behavior she established, presumably of non-team-playerness?)

Also, The New Yorker's excellent reporter Ben McGrath has rounded up some inside tales for a post, "Times Talk." Very interesting stuff, but still, it seems to me, no actual explanation.

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Judith Miller Redux: New York Times Lies Again-- Shouldn't They Lose Their License To Practice Journalism This Time?

-by Noah

A bit of background first: One of the sickest canards traditionally offered up by the wingnut population has always been that the New York Times is a card-carrying pillar of the imagined “Liberal Media.” Sure, the Times editorial page usually endorses Democrats, but, as we know, most Democrats are hardly what a reasonable person who thinks beyond media-fed buzz phrases would call liberal. Back when Bill Clinton won the White House, I realized that the Democrats had won the election by cloaking a Republican in Democratic slogans. What did he do once in office? He gave us right wing media consolidation in the form of corporations like Clear Channel, an operation that amounts to the wingnut think tank that controls thousands of broadcast outlets across the entire country, shaping opinion along the way. Clinton did that by picking up a pen and signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He even smiled for the cameras while he did it. Let’s not forget NAFTA either. That worked great, for his corporate buddies, but certainly not what Washington loves to call “ordinary Americans.”
 
More recently, the Times endorsed Barack Obama, a centrist at best, who can only be called liberal when compared to an angry old coot named John McCain and an utter dingbat nutball attention-whore named Sarah Palin who considers the lower 48 so damn communistic that she harbored desires of secession for her state when she was governor. So, it’s all relative.
 
The Times’ news section, or A-section is significantly worse. It was demonstrably pro-Dubya, twice; even going so far as to, at best ignore the massive election irregularities and illegalities that led to their boy sitting in the oval office. Even a review of the Miami Herald’s examination of the Florida fiasco and resulting coup began with a top of the page headline that told the reader that, in spite of everything, Bush had legitimately won anyway, hanging chads or not. It was only once you got down to about the 20th paragraph on an interior page that an analytical mind could add up the statistics and see that the opposite was true and that Gore would have won if all of the votes in Florida had been re-counted. That said, re-counting all the votes is what Gore should have pushed for, but, with friends like the Times, whose editorial page had actually endorsed him, who needs enemies. The Times reporting ended up presenting it both ways in one article. The problem was the initial impression they deliberately and purposefully conveyed with their headline.
 
Skipping ahead, the Times engaged in a now notorious and infamous campaign to, as the paper of record and led opinion former, led us headlong into a charge for the war in Iraq. “Reporter” Judith Miller and her boss, Executive Editor Bill Keller helped Bush sell the war to the country based on smoke and mirrors about non-existent WMDs and a war on terror when all it was a war for the Iraqi oil fields on behalf of the Bush Crime Family’s multi-national oil company friends, including the Saudi royal family. A platinum opportunity for war profiteering for Halliburton and the like was nothing to sneeze at either.
 
Judith Miller has now moved on to be a hero of the extreme right and now peddles her lies and propaganda for operations such as Newsmax, ‘nuff said. She’s where she should have always been, lurking on the fringe in cuckoo-land instead of framing the discussions of crucial matters for mainstream society. By the time she’s 60, she’ll be writing for a monthly UFO magazine. 
 
So what has the Times done now? Here it is: On Monday, February 21st, A. G. Sulzberger, no less than the son of the paper’s publisher, and Times reporter Monica Davey, ran a front page story headlined Union Bonds In Wisconsin Begin To Fray.


The article was based on a complete fiction and represented more than a little wishful thinking on the part of the Times and those it was trying to help. Looking to illustrate a crack in union solidarity, the Times built its false premise and centered it on a man who they claimed was a United Auto Workers union man named Rich Hahan who they described as

“… a supporter of Gov. Walker’s sweeping proposal to cut the benefits and collective bargaining rights of public workers in Wisconsin, a plan that has set off a firestorm of debate and protests at the state Capitol. He says he still believes in unions, but thinks those in the public sector lead to wasteful spending because of what he sees as lavish benefits and endless negotiations.”

Yep. That’s Repug talking point numero uno in this debate. It’s all part of the Republican strategy of setting private sector workers against their counterparts in the public sector.

“Across Wisconsin, residents like Mr. Hahan have fumed in recent years as tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs have vanished, and as some of the state’s best known corporations have pressured workers to accept benefit cuts.”
 
“Something needs to be done, he said, and quickly.”

It’s all about building up the envy. Hey, those guys get more than we do! It’s the Republican strategy of divide and conquer. If it’s not those blacks (polite term), it’s those longhairs, or damn women wanting equal pay, or those gays, or them a-rabs. Now it’s unions again, as it was way back in the mid-20th century. One wonders who the Republicans will hate when they have run out of groups to hate. 
 
Oh, and there’s one more problem in all of this concoction in the Times. The United Auto Workers has never heard of Mr. Hahan, real name Hahn, as the Times re-write now states. The paper whose motto is “All The News That’s Fit To Print” went out and looked for a kind of “great white hope” person in the form of a pro-Walker union guy. That he ended up being a phony is just a minor detail to the Times. The original story was worth a front page space to them but the retraction was buried well back in the paper. There are only two possible reasons for burying the retraction and neither of them reflect well on the paper. 1) The paper didn’t want to be embarrassed about getting it wrong  again, or, the more likely 2) The paper got its lie out there and damn well wasn’t about to correct it. That would not be all the news that fits the agenda now, would it? More importantly, the real damage was done, not just because first impressions always matter more even if you issue a correction, but because the original fraud of an article went out fully syndicated to daily papers in other cities and towns all across the nation. No, the paper’s intentions were not on the up and up or it would have issued a loud and bold retraction and correction right on their front page, AND, they would have done it in less than the five full days that it took them! There are times when the New York Times is just the same as Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, except with a better vocabulary.
 
It gets even better/worse. Monday, as I was thinking about writing this post, it hit me that I had heard the would be Grand Banana(s) Republican Dictator of Wisconsin, Scott Walker himself refer to the article in question. Where? I couldn’t remember. Then it hit me. The lightbulb came on brightly. The phone call! Let’s go to the transcript!

Walker: “The New York Times, of all things. I don’t normally tell people to read the New York Times, they’ve got a great story, one of those unbelievable moments of true journalism, what it’s supposed to be, objective journalism They got out of the capitol went down one county south of the capitol to Janesville; to Rock County. That’s where the General Motors plant once was.
 
David Koch Imitator: “Right. Right.”
 
Walker: “…The lead on this story’s about a guy who was laid off two years ago…  who points out that everyone else in his town has had to sacrifice except for all these public employees, and it’s about damn time they do, and he supports me… It’s unbelievable. So I went through and called all these, uh, handful, a dozen or so lawmakers I worry about each day, and said to them, everyone, get that story and print it out and send it to anybody giving you grief.”

“True journalism.” “Objective journalism.” Mission accomplished, eh, Mr. Sulzberger? You got that made up story out there, just like your Judith Miller got out that bullcrap about WMDs and mushroom clouds and all the rest. No mention of the fact that the rich aren’t sharing in any sacrifices either. And, all you sacrificed, Mr. Sulzberger, is what little integrity that you may have had to begin with.
 
Of further interest was the description of the writers at the end of the article. Sulzberger was described as simply a reporter from Janesville, WI, not as the son the publisher and heir of the paper.
 
                   
         ************
 
Does this kind of strategy on the part of the forces of the righties work? The answer is yes and no. Obviously, as I said, first impressions matter, especially when they are spread so wide and far and you don’t go out of the way to publicize the corrections once you are caught. But, since the Judith Miller episode, plus the other things I mentioned, and even the time the Times fired Jayson Blair for being “way too creative” in his reporting, there is at least at least a well-deserved, if not as large as justified, dent in the reputation of the paper. Combine that with the tsunami of arrogance in bold-faced lying provided daily by twisted entities such as FOX “News,” and the level of dishonesty and corruption of today’s politicians and industry leaders up to and including the “Supreme” Court that would make Richard Nixon look like the purest, most honest man that has walked the face of the Earth since Jesus by comparison, and you have an increasingly skeptical public.
 
The difference now, even when compared to the time of Judith Miller’s assault on the truth and the deadly consequences it led to, is that people have more sources of information both good and bad now than even a short time ago. The traditional media and our politicians still haven’t caught up to the fact that it isn’t quite as easy to fool all of the people all of the time as it once was. It must particularly gall those who fancy themselves as the puppet masters and the gatekeepers that no matter how many virtual psyops entities like FOX or Politico come along, or how many lies get planted in the public discourse by once trusted institutions like the New York Times, or all the millions of dollars that are spent in what amounts to attempts at brainwashing; huge numbers of people just aren’t buying the crap they are fed. The Internet, ironically created by our military, came along and changed things. Yes, the Internet can be used to spread all sorts of fraudulent conspiracies, just as Glenn Beck does, but it can also lead people to truths. Most importantly, it gets people talking to each other. As we heard and saw with Egypt and Tunisia, social networking has taken it one step further. Today, everyone is carrying a camera in their smart phone. Today, you can instantly get news from people who you know, or who know one of your friends, who are actually at the spot where the news is happening. You can see it yourself and make up your own mind without the intervention of a corporation or politician with an agenda. It’s not perfect and it never will be but it is important when it comes to what people think.
 
The Republicans have been pushing their union busting agenda while most of the Democrats remain silent in their acquiescence. But, the public has its own opinions. Some are led one way. Some are lead another. But, a lot of people are hearing and seeing for themselves; in these recent situations, from people who are protesting on the scene and are sophisticated enough to know the difference between propaganda and reality. Polls aren’t perfect either but as the saying goes they provide “a snapshot in time”.
 
On Monday a new poll done by, of all people the New York Times and CBS brought the news that the majority in their latest poll backs public sector employees. It must have killed them to publish it but they said the poll was coming so they couldn’t very well hide the results. In their poll, Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of 60% to 33%, a dominating differential. The poll also shows that Americans oppose the cutting of pay or benefits to reduce deficits by 56% to 37%. 61% of the respondents, including just over half of the Republicans say they think that the salaries and benefits of most public employees were either “about right” or “too low.” Even so, in their February 28 article on the poll, the Times quickly got in a dig at the unions in the second paragraph.

“Labor unions are not exactly popular, though: A third of those surveyed viewed them favorably. A quarter viewed them unfavorably…”

They couldn’t just state the stats. They couldn’t resist taking a crack at coloring. The bottom line is that most Americans, including most who refer to themselves as independents are supporting the public employee unions as they fight the newly elected Republican teabagger governors in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Maine, etc. In fact, if Governor Walker ran today for his current position in Wisconsin, polls show that he would not win. He barely won anyway in November. According to the latest PPP poll, Walker’s November opponent, Democrat Tom Barrett would win by 52% to 45%. Walker’s approval ratings have been going down for 10 days or so. One has to wonder what the polls would say if the corporate media wasn’t so in the bag for the right wing money interests and influencing so many people to vote for their own self-destruction.

Silly NYT! Trying to stop anyone from talking about the relationship between Caroline and Pinch will have everyone talking about it!

Only Caroline and Pinch know the truth, but even the NYT
surely understands that it has become part of the story.

by Ken

Let me stress that I'm not aware of any independent verification of the rumors that Gawker has been hawking. That said, let's look at Pareene's report there on a NYT blog reader's report of having a comment deleted by an online censor:

Times City Room Will Not Mention Caroline Kennedy's Special Friendship With Pinch Sulzberger

Don't even bother to leave a comment at the Times local news blog suggesting a sexy patrician affair between the Senator-to-be and the publisher of the Times.

It seems like a mostly legitimate question to ask, doesn't it? Whether or not they're having sexy sexy old rich scion sex, the special friendship between Sulzberger and Kennedy is well-documented. And when the publisher of your paper is BFF with a public figure, asking whether that friendship affects coverage of that public figure is certainly fair game.

But no, no comments allowed asking about the affair. When this guy tried, the City Room editors asked him to please not bring it up again. "we don't report stuff like this, regardless of the people involved." Stuff like... what? The Times certainly does report on the sexual lives of public figures, all the damn time, from Giuliani to Spitzer to Paterson. But reporting on the Sulzbergers not so much.

For the record, in the e-mail exchange Gawker reproduces, the City Room points out to the complaining reader that "Paterson called a new conference," and this is absolutely true. Is it really that hard to see the difference between reporting on rumors and reporting on the subject matter of a public figure's own news conference?

So David Paterson, at least, is a lousy example. And I'm not sure that Giuliani or Spitzer is a better one. In both those cases, there was actual news being reported.

However, the reality is that the Times's situation is much graver than whether or not to report on unsubstantiated rumors, and I can't believe that they don't know it. Rightly or wrongly, their publisher has become part of the story of Ms. Kennedy's candidacy for the Senate appointment. Talk about a nightmare!

Imagine what it must be like if you're a high-ranking NYT editor -- and I guess, realistically, we're talking about the highest-ranking NYT editor, Exec Ed Bill Keller, since who else would dare talk to Pinch Sulzberger about this? I have to assume that the subject has already come up in conversation, though I'm not at all sure that our Bill has had the nerve to say, "Now lookit, Pinch, just between us, you gotta level with me. Is there any truth to these rumors, 'cause if so, do have you any idea the size damage-control problem we got?"

Talk about a conflict of interest! I have no idea how the paper would go about reporting on a story that includes its highest-ranking official.

Come to think of it, thanks to the gossip-mongers, the NYT is really in that situation regardless of the truth of the rumors, or lack thereof. Because now that Pinch has been dragged into the story, how can the paper claim that its coverage is uninfluenced by this if it continues to fail to acknowledge the involvement?

Damned if I see any way out for the poor buggers. The only thought that occurs to me is that it's Pinch's problem, and he's going to have to solve it. Certainly nobody else can. I think that means some kind of public statement, the very thing I assume all the Timespeople are trying to avoid. And that statement had better not be coy or weasel-worded, regardless of what the facts are, because in that case everybody's going to come down on them, and they'll deserve it.

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