By: E&P Staff Since it broke the big domestic spy program story last week, The New York Times has been accused (from the left) of holding back the story since before the November 2004 election, and (from the right) publishing it only now because of a pending book written by one of its reporters. Today, a respected reporter for the Los Angeles Times claims to have confirmed both notions.
James Rainey's article in the Tuesday edition of the Los Angeles paper opens, "The New York Times first debated publishing a story about secret eavesdropping on Americans as early as last fall, before the 2004 presidential election.
"But the newspaper held the story for more than a year and only revealed the secret wiretaps last Friday, when it became apparent a book by one of its reporters was about to break the news, according to journalists familiar with the paper's internal discussions."
A spokesperson at the Times declined to comment today, and told E&P no one from the paper is doing interviews at this time.
The New York Times had drawn criticism in recent days for not fully explaining circumstances around holding and publishing the story. On Monday night, adding to this, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter revealed on the magazine's Web site that President Bush had "summoned" the newspaper's publisher and executive editor to the Oval Office on December 6 in an attempt to kill the story, to no avail. The Times had failed to disclose this meeting.
According to Rainey, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller rejects the suggestion that the timing of the story was linked to next month's scheduled publication of "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," by Times reporter James Risen, who co-authored last week's spy scoop.
"The publication was not timed to the Iraqi election, the Patriot Act debate, Jim's forthcoming book or any other event," Keller said in a statement. "We published the story when we did because after much hard work it was fully reported, checked and ready, and because, after listening respectfully to the administration's objections, we were convinced there was no good reason not to publish it."
Keller's paper had reported Friday that it held publication of the story for "a year" because the White House had argued that it "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."
Rainey, however, reports today, "The initial Times statements did not say that the paper's internal debate began before the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election -- in which Iraq and national security questions loomed large -- or make any reference to Risen's book, due out Jan. 16.
"But two journalists, who declined to be identified, said that editors at the paper were actively considering running the story about the wiretaps before Bush's November showdown with Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.
"Top editors at the paper eventually decided to hold the story. But the discussion was renewed after the election, with Risen and coauthor of the story, reporter Eric Lichtblau, joining some of the paper's editors in pushing for publication, according to the sources, who said they did not want to be identified because the Times had designated only Keller and a spokeswoman to address the matter.
"'When they realized that it was going to appear in the book anyway, that is when they went ahead and agreed to publish the story," said one of the journalists. 'That's not to say that was their entire consideration, but it was a very important one of them.'
"Both of the journalists said they thought that Times editors were overly cautious in holding the story for more than a year. But they said they thought the delays appeared to be in good faith, with the editors taking to heart the national security concerns raised by the Bush administration."
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