published on its Web site a letter from U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) challenging
his alleged role in protecting a tax loophole for a corporation whose CEO was pledging $1 million to
.
The difference between this letter and a typical response from an embattled politician: rather than publish Rangel's letter alone, the
Times ran it alongside
a point-by-point response by the reporter who worked on the stories.
In the edited e-mail interview below,
Times Executive Editor Bill Keller explains how the paper decided to publish the letter online with the response.
Steve Myers: Did this letter and the responses run in print as well?
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The New York Times
Bill Keller is Executive Editor of The New York Times. |
Bill Keller: No. The printed letters to the editor fall under the Editorial Page, which is separate from the newsroom, so I can't tell you for sure whether they plan to do something, but my understanding is that they do not.
Briefly, here's how things evolved. Mr. Rangel's office sent the letters page two versions of his letter, one intended for print and one, much longer, that they wanted posted on the Web. The letters editor referred the material down to a newsroom editor who monitors and responds to complaints from readers, and she asked the Metro Desk to react to Mr. Rangel's complaints.
David Kocieniewski drafted a detailed response.
Up to this point we had no plan to publish. But (
Times Metro Editor) Joe Sexton showed me the letter and David's response, and I suggested we run them both on the Web. The Web frees us from the conventional limitations of space and format, and this seemed a good opportunity to share the back and forth with interested readers. Since it's not something we normally do, we posted an editor's note explaining the sequence of events.
I don't think this is in any way a substitute for the letters column in print. Mr. Rangel specifically asked that a long version of his letter be posted on the Web. We were happy to do that, but it would have been a disservice to our readers to publish it without any editing, guidance or response.
Have you published a point-by-point response to a complaint letter like this before?Keller: On rare occasions, when a story prompted a debate, we have invited readers (or subjects) to submit comments and questions, to which we responded. ...
We did it with (lobbyist Vicki) Iseman. Back in June 2006 I did
an online letter to readers responding to questions about why we published a story on U.S. surveillance of international banking records. ... I don't think we've ever done one exactly like the Rangel letter.
But I don't expect it to be the last.
How are letters like this normally handled, and what does the paper do to respond to them?Keller: When someone raises serious objections to a story, our first step is usually to ask the reporter or supervising editor to supply corroboration. That's to help us in determining how to respond to the complaint. If that's not sufficient, we will have an editor do additional checking.
... The newsroom does publish letters to specialized departments -- for example, in the Sunday magazine and the Book Review. In the Book Review we sometimes publish responses. Usually we let the letter-writer have the last word, unless we regard the material as misleading.
Does this approach have anything to do with the impact of bloggers and the Web world in which stories and rebuttals (I saw a couple stories on other sites) travel fast?Keller: Of course. Our Web site is not just a digital version of the print paper. It lives in the Internet world, and we try to take advantage of the opportunities that creates.
