Soccer Dad

McCain and the nyt

via memeorandum

I hope to explore the McCain article in more detail, but time constraints force me to deal with Clark Hoyt's description of the controversy in today's NYT.

But in the absence of a smoking gun, I asked Keller why he decided to run what he had.

“If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we’d have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members,” he replied. “But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that he behaved in such a way that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career.”

I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

Hoyt is correct. He got to the point of the article and rejected Keller's weak defense.

I doubt that the article would have been so prominently featured if it was just an examination of Sen. McCain's "reckless behavior." The "romantic" aspect was key to the importance attached to the article. That's the scandal that would have sunk McCain's presidential bid. The fact that the Times published a picture of Ms. Iseman in a glamorous gown proves the point. (My wife pointed out that if it was important that she was a lobbyist, why not publish a picture of her in a business suit? Surely that's the way Sen. McCain more likely saw her.)

But there's an annoying point to Hoyt's column.

The article had repercussions for both McCain and The Times. He may benefit, at least in the short run, from a conservative backlash against the “liberal” New York Times. The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance.

Hoyt was not correct to surround "liberal" with scare quotes. I take you back to the man who originally held Hoyt's job, Dan Okrent.

I'll get to the politics-and-policy issues this fall (I want to watch the campaign coverage before I conclude anything), but for now my concern is the flammable stuff that ignites the right. These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you've been reading the paper with your eyes closed.

But if you're examining the paper's coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all; if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn't wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you're traveling in a strange and forbidding world.

Start with the editorial page, so thoroughly saturated in liberal theology that when it occasionally strays from that point of view the shocked yelps from the left overwhelm even the ceaseless rumble of disapproval from the right.

Across the gutter, the Op-Ed page editors do an evenhanded job of representing a range of views in the essays from outsiders they publish - but you need an awfully heavy counterweight to balance a page that also bears the work of seven opinionated columnists, only two of whom could be classified as conservative (and, even then, of the conservative subspecies that supports legalization of gay unions and, in the case of William Safire, opposes some central provisions of the Patriot Act).

One of the major failings of the NY Times is that it doesn't keep a strict separation between its editorial and news pages. The editorial views profoundly affect what is covered and how it is covered.

Dan Okrent, was not perfect, but he understood this reality. It's a shame that his successor does not.

Hoyt recognized one elephant; he ignored the bigger one.

media bias, new york times, john mccain.