Fit to Print? New York Times in Crosshairs for Report on McCain and Female Lobbyist
The New York Times is under fire after publishing a critical story about John McCain. (FNC)
The New York Times is in the crosshairs after publishing a lengthy and critical profile of John McCain Thursday that suggests — but does not outright say — that McCain had a romantic relationship with a female lobbyist and did favors for her clients from his position as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
The New Republic published a long article Thursday afternoon on its Web site detailing the story behind the story and claiming, “What’s most remarkable about the article is that it appeared in the paper at all.”
The New Republic lambasted The New York Times for giving the green light, claiming the piece was “filled with awkward journalistic moves” and that it stepped around the suggested trysts with lobbyist Vicki Iseman by focusing on the debate in the McCain campaign itself about the relationship.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee vehemently refuted the article with his wife, Cindy, by his side.
“I’m very disappointed in The New York Times piece. It’s not true,” McCain said at a press conference he called in Toledo, Ohio.
The Arizona senator, along with Hillary Clinton, was endorsed by the newspaper before their parties’ respective presidential primaries in New York on Feb. 5.
With only anecdotal descriptions and no evidence of an improper relationship, focus has shifted from suggestions of McCain’s supposed improprieties to questions over whether the Times should have ran the story.
“I don’t think that there is enough acknowledged sourcing for this story,” U.S. News & World Report Publisher Mort Zuckerman told FOX News, saying it is not news that follows the newspaper’s motto of being fit to print. “I really don’t think it rises to that level.”
A blog on The National Review Online said simply, “The Times doesn’t have the goods — at least from what’s in the story — and shouldn’t have run it.”
“The New York Times is giving the National Enquirer a bad name,” said Brent Bozell of the conservative watchdog Media Research Center. “The New York Times story today is all that about a story that is 10 years old. I have never seen anything like it in my life.”
The Times article described how McCain’s campaign aides kept him and Iseman apart during the 2000 election for fear they were giving the impression they were having an affair. It noted how McCain wrote to government regulators on behalf of a client of the lobbyist while he was Commerce Committee chairman.
The article had been rumored for months after a report on it surfaced on the Drudge Report in December.
The New Republic story reported that the idea for the McCain piece was hatched in November, when four reporters were thrown on the assignment. Over the ensuing months, the magazine reported that the story “pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn’t.”
The Drudge piece sent the McCain article “into hiding,” but in the end, on Feb. 19, top Times editors and the paper’s attorneys gave the final draft a read-through and decided to publish, The New Republic reported.
“The Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable,” reads The New Republic article.
Keller released a statement Thursday saying, “On the substance, we think the story speaks for itself.
“On the timing, our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready. ‘Ready’ means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception. It was a long time in the works. It reached my desk late Tuesday afternoon. After a final edit and a routine check by our lawyers, we published it,” he said.
McCain’s aides have defended the Arizona senator in droves from the story. They argue that the newspaper published a deliberate smear under pressure from The New Republic, which two weeks ago called the campaign for comment on the Times story published Thursday.
“The New York Times — the newspaper that gave MoveOn.org a sweetheart deal to run advertisements attacking General Petraeus — has shown once again that it cannot exercise good journalistic judgment when it comes to dealing with a conservative Republican,” campaign manager Rick Davis said in an e-mail to supporters, urging them to contribute to the campaign “to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against the New York Times. “
“All I can conclude is that this is the largest liberal newspaper in America trying to unfairly attack the integrity of the new conservative Republican nominee for president,” said McCain adviser Charlie Black. “There is no other good explanation for it.”
McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt called the report “a smear … it reads like a tabloid gossip sheet.”
“I think this is going to play badly for The New York Times and John McCain is going to be fine,” Schmidt said.
The Republican National Committee even used the story as a fundraising pitch of its own Thursday in an e-mail to donors.
McCain himself lamented that “this whole story is based on anonymous sources,” saying that could encompass any of the more than 100 aides he’s had contact with through the Commerce Committee.
The newspaper quoted anonymous aides as saying they had urged McCain and Iseman to stay away from each other prior to his failed presidential campaign in 2000.
A senior McCain adviser said after the magazine article was released that McCain isn’t planning on talking about the Times story any time soon.
“We answered every question they had this morning. That’s enough,” the adviser said.
Click here to read the article on the McCain article in The New Republic.
FOX News’ Mosheh Oinounou contributed to this report.
I AGREE WITH MR BOZELL. THIS IS WORSE THAN A NATIONAL INQUIRER STORY.
Aren’t the media and apparantly SO MANY of you missing the truth behind the story here?
Senator’s niche image takes a hit
Globe Staff / January 7, 2000
Senator John McCain’s campaign completed plans for a Florida fund-raising event sponsored by the founder of Paxson Communications just days before McCain wrote the first of two letters insisting that federal regulators vote on an issue that benefited the company, a spokesman for McCain acknowledged last night.
McCain cancel ed the event, which was scheduled for tomorrow and would have raised an estimated $50,000, after the Globe reported on Wednesday that McCain interceded with the Federal Communications Commission at the urging of Paxson’s lobbyist. Lowell Paxson and his associates had funneled $20,000 to McCain’s campaign earlier in the year.
___________________________
Lobbyist worked for local TV mogul
By EVE SAMPLES
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 22, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH — Lowell “Bud” Paxson founded his West Palm Beach television network on family-friendly principles.
Now that network finds itself in the midst of a controversy over Sen. John McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist for Paxson and the ethical propriety of McCain’s advocacy for the broadcaster.
The questions about McCain date to 1999, when two big deals put federal limits on media ownership in the spotlight: Viacom Inc.’s buyout of CBS Corp. and NBC’s purchase of a 32 percent interest in Paxson Communications Corp., a little-known network with huge broadcasting capacity and G-rated programming.
The four companies, plus ABC and Fox, stood to gain if the Federal Communications Commission relaxed rules prohibiting a single television broadcaster from reaching more than 35 percent of the nation’s households.
McCain, R-Ariz., then a presidential candidate for the 2000 election, introduced legislation to raise the ownership cap to 50 percent, according to published reports.
That change, had it been approved, would have almost guaranteed an increase in the value of Paxson’s dozens of stations across the country.
A story published in Thursday’s New York Times raised questions about McCain’s involvement with Paxson and its lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, and nudges the local company - now known as Ion Media Networks Inc. - into the biggest scuffle of McCain’s bid for the White House.
During his campaign for the Republican nomination eight years ago, McCain flew on Paxson’s jet at least four times. Paxson and his wife, Marla, have donated $12,000 to McCain since 1998, with the most recent contribution in 2003.
In late 1999, McCain twice wrote letters to the FCC on behalf of Paxson Communications, urging quick consideration of its proposal to buy a television station license in Pittsburgh.
!!!!!!!McCain was head of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC!!!!!!
~~Isn’t this is the kind of thing McKing always says he is against. Why isnt THAT the highlight of the issue?~~
The prize for front-runner status…
UPDATED: 02/21/2008 at 14:31 CST
It’s a sign of the times… when you enter a political race the media goons start digging. Back in the old days it was generally accepted that most people were good and honest. And if there were skeletons in…
The NYT is like all the other Liberal Media Outlets, they say waht they want, true or not just to benefit the Socialist agenda!!
As long as lies and deceit are allowed in the media world, condoned by so call “rights” we will never know the truth.
The American people are so ignorant of the world around them (mainly do to poor education and biased media) the NYT will always have their say and most will believe it!!
This is a Bill Clintonism story. It’s saying things in “just the right way” to get people to believe something that is not true. The Times is hoping people will read it as “John McCain had an affair”. There is nothing wrong with people being cautious on John McCain’s behalf and reminding him to be careful of anyone he comes in contact with, for all the obvious reasons proven by this story. Because the media will take something that is not there and turn it into a false media circus to accomplish their agenda. I worked for a major paper, and I have seen what goes on in editing rooms. I have seen stories cut to infer things that the editors KNEW would give the wrong impression. I was extremely niave until that first job over 20 years ago. It only took me 6 months in that job to realize the power of the press.
Response to cj. I am sure they have room for you in Iran. This country has done amazing things. We freed the Jews in WWII. We have always stood for those who could not stand for themselves. The democrats actually believe we should take care of or selves only and let the rest of the people in the world be murdered. If you don’t like what this country does then go away.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a full disclosure from the New York Times?
Hey Everyone wants one from everyone else, So Why do they get a Pass?
Oh, that’s right, Journalistic, or is that Poetic Licenses?
It’s, Not Fair to call their Ethics Into; Question? Or, Their Motives?
Yea, Yea, that’s right. Suck it up McCain.
Nothing you can do, its, Not Liable, So stop Whining?
Again, the Media get the Drive By Shot, and You get to wear the Smear.
Smile, it gets HOT in this Political Circus for the POTUS!
Let Otis and Ms. B, Be Too! They can’t be held accountable, either!
They have the Media Promoting Them! Not You!
Why Don’t You, Just Quit and Let Huckabee have the Spotlight?
That’s Right, Just Let the Democrats Have this One, It’s Their Turn?
They Deserve It? After All, They Worked SOO HAAARD in
CONGRESS THIS PAST FOUR YEARS! It’s Been TOO HARD on THEM?
HOW ABOUT A NICE HAWAIIAN PUNCH? And then Another one to the
LEFT, and then another one to the RIGHT?
LIKE THEY TOLD TRUEMAN, GIVE EM” HELL McCAIN and Then,
Give EM THEIR HEAD, IN THEIR HANDS TOO!
Ed Rose, You’re an idiot.
“should have RUN the story”………not “should have RAN the story”………..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Should this story come as a surprise to any clear thinking American? The left wing New York Times is the official mouthpiece for the Democratic Party since the party was hijacked by Communists many years ago. You ain’t seen nothin yet, just wait and watch to see the “RED” verbal banners glow.