The New Republic's hotly-anticipated article on the background to the New York Times' investigative piece on Senator John McCain is now up on TNR's website.
Since its publication today, the NYT piece detailing McCain's links to a telecommunication's lobbyist, has been heavily criticised, by the McCain campaign and other sections of the media. In TNR's report, author Gabriel Sherman offers some intriguing glimpses into the debate that went on inside the NYT's newsroom:
The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn't. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.
