The New York Times piece on John McCain’s lobbyist ties has people scratching their heads over not just why the paper ran it, but why they ran it now. A few rationales being floated:
Theory #1: The
Times
wanted to influence the election.
Rush Limbaugh
argued
on his radio show that now that McCain has secured the nomination, he has been trying to rally the Republican base by drifting further right. Which, according to Limbaugh, made the
Times
regret its decision to endorse him. Therefore, they wanted to take McCain down a notch.
Verdict:
Silly. If anything, the timing
avoided
influencing the GOP nomination. (See next theory.) Plus, this theory assumes that news reporters care what their editorial page thinks.
Theory #2: The
Times
wanted to avoid influencing the election.
Back in December, Matt Drudge reported that “[executive editor Bill] Keller expressed serious reservations about journalism ethics and issuing a damaging story so close to an election.” By that logic, the
Times
held the piece long enough that it would not decide the outcome of the GOP primary.
Verdict:
Likely. Keller has been relatively accommodating when it comes to holding stories that could unduly influence events. (See the
Times
’ wiretapping story, which he
held for over a year
.) Any earlier, and the
Times
would have been accused of meddling.
Theory #3: The
New Republic
was about to break it.
According to Gabriel Sherman’s
behind-the-scenes
TNR
piece
, a McCain aide claimed that the
Times
“did this because
The New Republic
was going to run a story that looked back at the infighting there, the Judy Miller-type power struggles—they decided that they would rather smear McCain than suffer a story that made
The New York Times
newsroom look bad.”
Verdict:
Possible. Sure, the
TNR
piece included details of the struggle over Iseman and would have scooped the
Times
. But it’s not like the
Times
avoided the negative
TNR
story by rushing their own piece to print. If anything, they guaranteed it would run soonest.
