Getting and Giving a Lesson
Reviewed by Stuart H. Loory Posted Thu, May 15 2008
The New York Times runs a story as the off-lead on Feb. 21 implying strongly that Sen. John McCain, the undisputed Republican presidential nominee, had an affair eight years ago with a woman 40 years his junior who was also a high powered Washington lobbyist. That story touches off a debate among political cognoscenti of all stripes within hours after the paper hits doorsteps across the country.
The questions raised involved:
Mystery: why did The Times do it then (after McCain is already assured of the nomination) and not two weeks before (when it could have impacted his support in the so-called super Tuesday primaries to the benefit of Mike Huckabee, the last remaining Republican hopeful)?
Ethics: Was it proper for The Times to raise questions about McCain’s personal life, particularly on such an old story?
Politics: Known as a liberal, pro-Democratic paper, was The Times trying to blacken the Republican candidate even though it had endorsed him for the Republican nomination on its editorial page just a few weeks before? (It also endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.)
Competition: The Times had been working on the story for months and its competitors knew it. Was it publishing a weak story to stay ahead of competition?
Gossip: Word spreads that editors and reporters at The Times were sharply split over the story and that Times editors finally agreed to use it to quell dissension in the newsroom. Did the wary editors bow to the demands of aggressive reporters?
These are the kinds of things all of us in the news business love to chew over, and when we think about questions from the public concerning how we prepare our product, we think they are generally naive, ill-informed or fortified by the complainant’s political bias.
The Times’s story about McCain may not have proven anything wrong with the candidate and it did not seem to have any impact on the campaign, but it did show something unexpected about the relationship between The Times and its readers.
The newspaper’s readers (consumers in economic terminology) are deeply concerned about the product they buy, and they want to know how the paper operates: how its reporters gather and write news, how its editors deal with the work of reporters, how the editors decide whether or not to use the material submitted, and how they decide how much prominence it should get. The Times received more than 4,000 emails with questions and comments about the McCain article. And that required what must have been hours of discussion within The Times news-side management and finally the drafting of answers to its readers.
Bill Keller, the executive editor of the paper, wrote that The Times expected criticism and initially blamed much of it on McCain operatives who would try to twist reaction from that condemning McCain to condemnation of The New York Times. He said:
“The point of this . . . installment was that, according to people who know him well, this man who prizes his honor above all things and who appreciates the importance of appearances also has a history of being sometimes careless about the appearance of impropriety, about his reputation. The story cites several examples, and quotes friends and admirers talking of this apparent contradiction in his character. That is why some members of his staff were so alarmed by the appearance of his relationship with Ms. {Vicky} Iseman {the Washington lobbyist}. And that, it seemed (and still seems) to us, was something our readers would want to know about a man who aspires to be president.”
In that paragraph, Keller presented the importance of the McCain piece far more cogently than the reporters and line editors of it did in the original report. But the more important thing, for our purposes, is that he bothered to respond at all. Consumers of news – whether it is in paid publications like The Times or free services like alternative newspapers, broadcast television or radio, or Internet and e-mail services – now find it easy to express their opinions and make them heard. That in turn forces those who control the news to examine their operations seriously and report back to their consumers on what is done and how they do it.
Automobile buyers have learned to complain when their new cars do not perform up to standards. Warranties have grown longer term and more inclusive. Consumers of health care have learned to hold doctors and hospitals accountable in many countries through civil actions in courts – and in some cases legal action. Those who saw the dangers of cigarette smoking began holding the tobacco industry responsible.
So consumers’ movements are growing. If the news business is smart, it will recognize the importance of this and do what is necessary to treat its consumers better.
In its time of turmoil, The New York Times is leading the way. It deserves criticism for the way it handled the McCain story but it also deserved kudos for taking its readers seriously. The rest of the news business should follow that lead.
Stuart H. Loory
Stuart H. Loory, an international journalist, is Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism and editor of Global Journalist. Loory worked for TBS/CNN from October 1980 to March 1997 as CNN vice president and Washington managing editor, Moscow correspondent, and executive producer, among other positions. Before joining TBS/CNN, Loory spent 28 years in the newspaper business. Among his positions were Moscow bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune and White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times during the last years of Lyndon Johnson and the first two of Richard Nixon. He was a member of the Nixon enemies list. He was later managing editor of the Chicago Sun Times where he supervised several award-winning investigative reporting series.