Romenesko Memos | CJR Daily
Times executive editor Bill Keller tells his staff: “I wish we had dealt with the controversy over our coverage of WMD as soon as I became executive editor. At the time, we thought we had compelling reasons for kicking the issue down the road. The paper had just been through a major trauma, the Jayson Blair episode, and needed to regain its equilibrium. It felt somehow unsavory to begin a tenure by attacking our predecessors. I was trying to get my arms around a huge new job, appoint my team, get the paper fully back to normal, and I feared the WMD issue could become a crippling distraction.” RE JUDITH MILLER/SCOOTER LIBBY: “If I had known the details of Judy’s entanglement with Libby, I’d have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense, and perhaps more willing than I had been to support efforts aimed at exploring compromises.” STEVE LOVELADY: “These are the words of an honorable man confessing to mistakes that grew out of the best of intentions — a determination not to scapegoat either his predecessors or their teachers’ pets.”
> Kurt Andersen: “Sulzberger is not going to fire himself. Indeed, he affects a kind of la-di-dah disregard for the whole horrible bungle.” (Romenesko Misc.)
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