Why exactly did the NYT hold the NSA scoop for a year? I've had my thoughts--which I stand by. But then, I'm not in the know. Bill Keller is. And of course, he ain't talking. Jay Rosen, in a typically revealing (and long) essay, looks at the cost and ultimately futility of Keller's stance:
Obviously there are things the Times learned that it cannot tell us about the NSA, and about its conflicts with the Administration. This may account for some of the silences and gaps. But what Keller, and his crew, and Sulzberger with his ally Catherine Mathis (Times spokeswoman) don’t seem to get is that the Times could signal to readers when it knows it’s not leveling with us.
“When you think of the New York Times, transparency is not the first quality that leaps to mind, but they have to explain themselves,” said Tom Kunkel, dean of the J-school at University of Maryland and a former newspaper editor. “Even if you can’t tell them something, in my experience news consumers always appreciate it when you make an effort to explain why you can’t.”...
If you don’t have online Q and A’s, and you don’t go on the air to explain, and you don’t answer reporters questions, and you don’t have a blog where you can discuss it, and you don’t want to go into the back story because that wouldn’t be stoic… then how is engagement with open-minded critics going to ever take place? In soundbites and one-paragraph faxes and Eric Lichtblau telling Salon, “I’m afraid we’re referring all calls to Catherine Mathis in corporate PR…”? Not likely.
P.S. Ancedotal evidence supporting my theory that the NYT had essentially caved (or use whatever less perjorative term you like) and only published the story because it was about to be scooped--by one of its own reporters. From the Observer:
After The Times decided not to publish it at that time, Mr. Risen went away on book leave, and his piece was shelved and regarded as dead, according to a Times source.
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