The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Did What the New York Times Couldn’t
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, known for being flippant instead of helpful, surprisingly decided not to run the NY Times hack job on Sen. John McCain. Why? Managing editor David McCumber explains:
To me, the story had serious flaws. It did not convincingly make the case that McCain either had an affair with a lobbyist, or was improperly influenced by her. It used a raft of unnamed sources to assert that members of McCain’s campaign staff — not this campaign but his campaign eight years ago — were concerned about the amount of time McCain was spending with the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. They were worried about the appearance of a close bond between the two of them.
Then it went even further back, re-establishing the difficulties McCain had with his close association to savings-and-loan criminal Charles Keating. It didn’t get back to the thing that (of course) the rest of the media immediately pounced on — McCain, Iseman and the nature of their relationship — until very deep in the story. And when the story did get back there, it didn’t do so with anything approaching convincing material.
A very good editor I happen to work for, P-I Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby, said today that the story read like a candidate profile to him, not an investigative story, and I think that’s true. A candidate profile based on a lot of old anecdotes.
I’m guessing the paper got bored of haikus.
The Post-Intelligencer has more journalistic integrity than the NY Times. Well, sort of. McCumber goes on to say:
Of course, we’ll follow the story now. The story has become an inextricable part of the campaign narrative. The story, in a sense, is the story now.
The MSM pack mentality can’t be resisted forever.
[via Outside the Beltway]
UPDATE: If the Times wanted the appearance of engaging in a smear campaign against McCain they’re doing a good job. Ed Morrissey notes McCain’s denial of an affair and/or special treatment with a lobbyist was put on page A20. Ed writes,
Run the smear on the front page in a two-column box; run the response in the back of the news section. Sounds like the kind of journalism that makes Tom Shipley proud!
Yet executive editor Bill Keller was surprised at the negative reaction:
Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction (including more than 2,400 reader comments posted on our Web site). I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot.
The Concord Monitor editorialized that the NY Times was foolish to publish the undocumented attack.
Then there’s the Times‘ sister newspaper, The Boston Globe that ran a Washington Post story that emphasized McCain’s connection with lobbyists instead of the tabloid sex story.
