Not in Times

A really troubling story… or lack thereof (via Americablog):

‘NYT’ Public Editor Exposes Details on Delay in NSA Story

NEW YORK Since publication of The New York Times scoop last Dec. 16 on National Security Agency warrantless eavesdropping — which later won a Pulitzer — one side issue has been the hint that the paper had the basic story before election day, more than a year earlier, and held it.

Critics have suggested that if it had been published earlier it might have cost President Bush re-election. Bill Keller, the Times’ executive editor, has given varying answers about this. Did he mislead readers last December by stating that he had held the article for “a year” to place that after the election? Later he said, vaguely, “more than year.”

In January, the paper’s public editor, Byron Calame, complained that he had encountered “unusual difficulty” in trying to determine when exactly the paper learned of the surveillance. “The New York Times’s explanation…was woefully inadequate,” wrote Calame at that time. “And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper’s repeated pledges of greater transparency.”

Now, in the Sunday Times this week, Calame has produced a tough-minded column, revealing new information and offering fresh criticism. In the end, Keller admits that his dating of the delay had been “inelegant.” …

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