New York magazine's main cover story this week is headlined "Times under siege" and singles out Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, as the man in the firing line. Here's how the magazine pitches its multi-thousand-word article: "The White House calls him a traitor. He gets roasted every day on talk shows and blogs. The newsroom is losing faith. The paper is shrinking. And the worst part is that fighting back means overcoming his own nature."
Keller gets the intimate profile treatment for his decision to publish, despite President Bush's personal plea, an exposé of the administration's monitoring of phone calls without court-approved warrants and then, months later, the Swift bank story that revealed the tracking of international financial transactions. Lots of anonymous Times sources dump on Keller for his supposed aloofness and indecisiveness but he certainly doesn't emerge as a villain. (Via New York magazine)
