Eavesdropping and the Election: An Answer on the Question of Timing

NYT The Public Editor

By BYRON CALAME

THE NEW YORK TIMES’S Dec. 16 article that disclosed the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping has led to an important public debate about the once-secret program. And the decision to write about the program in the face of White House pressure deserved even more praise than I gave it in a January column, which focused on the paper’s inadequate explanation of why it had “delayed publication for a year.”

The article, written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, has been honored with a Pulitzer and other journalistic prizes. But contradictory post-publication comments by Times editors and others about just how long the article was held have left me increasingly concerned about one key question: Did The Times mislead readers by stating that any delay in publication came after the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election?

In my January column, in which I refused to rely on anonymous sources, I noted that I was left “puzzled” by the election question. But I have now learned from Bill Keller, the executive editor, that The Times delayed publication of drafts of the eavesdropping article before the 2004 election. This revelation confirms what anonymous sources had told other publications such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer in December.

A number of readers critical of the Bush administration have remained particularly suspicious of the article’s assertion that the publication delay dated back only “a year” to Dec. 16, 2004. They contend that pre-election disclosure of the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping could have changed the outcome of the election.

Since the Times article appeared, I have grown increasingly intrigued by changes in the way the delay has been described in the paper and in comments by Mr. Keller. A background paragraph in a follow-up article on Dec. 31 said, “The administration first learned that The New York Times had obtained information about the secret eavesdropping program more than a year ago.” Mr. Keller also began using the “more than a year” language.

My decision to take another look at the extent of the delay came after reading Mr. Keller’s response to an online question in April during “Talk to the Newsroom,” a feature on nytimes.com. Eric Sullivan, from Waunakee, Wis., commented: “I’d like to know why you sat on the N.S.A. story. You probably changed the course of an election and likely history to come.”

Mr. Keller’s rather matter-of-fact acceptance of Mr. Sullivan’s presumptions caught my eye: “Whether publishing earlier would have influenced the 2004 election is, I think, hard to say. Judging from the public reaction to the N.S.A. eavesdropping reflected in various polls, one could ask whether earlier disclosure might have helped President Bush more than hurt.”

Mr. Keller, who wouldn’t answer any questions for my January column, recently agreed to an interview about the delay, although he saw it as “old business.” But he had some new things to say about the delay and the election.

Internal discussions about drafts of the article had been “dragging on for weeks” before the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Keller acknowledged. That process had included talks with the Bush administration. He said a fresh draft was the subject of internal deliberations “less than a week” before the election.

“The climactic discussion about whether to publish was right on the eve of the election,” Mr. Keller said. The pre-election discussions included Jill Abramson, a managing editor; Philip Taubman, the chief of the Washington bureau; Rebecca Corbett, the editor handling the story, and often Mr. Risen. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, was briefed, but Mr. Keller said the final decision to hold the story was his.

Mr. Keller declined to explain in detail his pre-election decision to hold the article, citing obligations to preserve the confidentiality of sources. He has repeatedly indicated that a major reason for the publication delays was the administration’s claim that everyone involved was satisfied with the program’s legality. Later, he has said, it became clear that questions about the program’s legality “loomed larger within the government than we had previously understood.”

But last week Mr. Keller e-mailed me a description of how that picture had changed by December 2005, and it cast some new light on the pre-election situation for me. It implied that the paper’s pre-election sources hadn’t been sufficiently “well-placed and credible” to convince him that questions about the program’s legality and oversight were serious enough to make it “responsible to publish.” But by December, he wrote, “We now had some new people who could in no way be characterized as disgruntled bureaucrats or war-on-terror doves saying we should publish. That was a big deal.”

Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the election also was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said. I agree that candidates affected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to a week — to get their response disseminated before voters head to the polls.

So why did the Dec. 16 article say The Times had “delayed publication for a year,” specifically ruling out the possibility that the story had been held prior to the Nov. 2 election? “It was probably inelegant wording,” Mr. Keller said, who added later, “I don’t know what was in my head at the time.”

Were the wording and the sensitivity of the election-day timing issue discussed internally? “I don’t remember,” Mr. Keller said in an interview. He does remember discussing that “I wanted to own up to holding it.” And The Times does deserve credit for disclosing that it had held the story.

It was more than inelegant, however, to report flatly that the delay had lasted “a year.” Characterizing it as “more than a year,” as Mr. Keller and others later did, would have been technically accurate. But that phrase would have represented a fuzziness that Times readers shouldn’t have to put up with when a hotly contested presidential election is involved.

Given the importance of this otherwise outstanding article on warrantless eavesdropping — and now the confirmation of pre-election decisions to delay publication — The Times owes it to readers to set the official record straight.

Identifying Contributors

Inviting outside experts to write essays, commentaries and columns about their field can provide valuable insights to Times readers. But because they hold non-journalism jobs that are their primary means of income and professional fulfillment, readers can question how much those career endeavors influence what these experts write.

While the inherent conflict can’t be eliminated, full disclosure of the positions held by outside contributors can defuse reader suspicions that otherwise could take root in the absence of the facts. But a check of The Times reveals that not all of these contributors are being identified by the job they hold, and it’s not clear that any paper-wide standards are being applied consistently.

This concern over disclosure doesn’t involve all outside contributors. The bulk of the army of freelancers used by The Times isn’t at issue here because journalism or writing typically constitutes their principal job. And contributors to the weekly Book Review and the Op-Ed pages are already being identified.

I’m not suggesting any journalistic sins by contributors with careers outside journalism, but here are a few examples where disclosure could help allay reader suspicions about possible hidden agendas.

One reader asked recently why Samuel G. Freedman, a writer of the On Education column, is not identified as a professor at Columbia, where he teaches journalism. His editor doesn’t think it’s necessary because Mr. Freedman doesn’t devote entire columns to Columbia or journalism schools. But I feel his Columbia position is relevant to his writing about education, and disclosing it would be beneficial especially because his “sgfreedman@nytimes.com” e-mail address listed with each column could lead readers to think he’s on the staff.

Peter Steinfels, the respected writer of the Beliefs column, isn’t identified in any way. He is co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture and a member of the faculty at Fordham University, a Catholic institution. Catholics and Catholicism are frequently mentioned in Beliefs, although Mr. Steinfels sees only eight of his past 45 columns as “really dwelling on matters specific to Catholicism.”

Many of the medical doctors who write essays and commentaries for the Health & Fitness pages of the Science Times section are not identified beyond the “M.D.” in their bylines. Based on the queries I have received, I think readers would like to know what kind of medicine these doctors practice and where.

The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section.