UPDATE: Magazine's Lengthy Profile of Keller Years at 'NYT'

By: E&P Staff A wide-ranging cover story on the current state of The New York Times in this week's New York magazine offers, among other things, fresh details about the pressure brought on the paper by the Bush administration to hold back on its National Security Agency spying story late last year. By that point, it had already been held for over a year, but 11 days later the Times went ahead with it, and it would win a Puilitzer Prize in the spring.

It also examines, at times critically, Keller's decision to hold the story for so long and his conflicts with the co-author, James Risen. It also details several different "power struggles" at the paper, past and present, including one between Washington fixtures Phil Taubman and Jill Abramson. There's even newsroom gossip and quotes from Keller's wife and a Howell Raines retort.

The cover is mainly a mock front page of the Times with pictures of President Bush and the paper's executive editor, Bill Keller. The banner cover line is "Times Under Siege" and in the deck we learn, "President says editor will have 'blood on his hands.'" Another "story" on the cover about Keller is headlined, "Reluctant Leader Goaded to Fight."

One element of the massive story by Joe Hagan is the Dec. 5, 2005, meeting at the White House, where three top Timesmen -- Keller, Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and Washington bureau chief Phil Taubman -- had been summoned in an attempt to kill or further delay the NSA story.

"Afterward," Hagan writes, "Sulzberger and Keller stood outside the White House. Undaunted by the president?s logic and his threats, Keller told Sulzberger, 'Nothing I heard in there changed my mind.' Sulzberger agreed." Then the White House started slamming the Times.

The title of the New York story, in fact, is "The United States of America vs. Bill Keller." It is now available in full at the magazine's Web site.

The article also covers current discontent at the Times, the missteps during the Judy Miller crisis, Keller's severe conflict with Risen over holding the NSA story, and his relationship with Sulzberger as he gets more pressure to accept business realities, among other topics.

A recurring theme is whether the reticent Keller is the "right" editor for the paper at this time. The story concludes with a frank admission by Keller. "Look, this is not what I went into newspapers to do," he told Hagan in a long e-mail discussing the business challenges. "I?m a reporter at heart. I still regard my quality time as the time I spend with reporters and editors, and with stories. (Every time I send someone off to a new reporting assignment, there?s a little voice in my head that says, ?Take me with you!?).?

To read the full article, click here.