On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015

New York Times: Nothing 'significantly new' in 'politicized' Libya hearings

New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet said today he doesn't see "anything significantly new" in yesterday's congressional hearings on Libya, while both he and the paper's executive editor, Jill Abramson, suggested the hearings were politicized and therefore not worthy of front-page coverage.

Baquet and Abramson's remarks come in response to criticism from the paper's own public editor, Margaret Sullivan, who objected to the editors' decision not to run its story about the hearings on today's front page. Both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal gave yesterday's hearings prominent play on their front pages, above the fold. The Times placed its story on page A3.

(Also on POLITICO: Partisan fireworks at Libya hearing)

Baquet, who oversees the paper's afternoon editorial meeting, told Sullivan he "didn’t think there was anything significantly new in it."

“It’s three weeks before the election and it’s a politicized thing, but if they had made significant news, we would have put it on the front," he said.

(Also on POLITICO: Cummings rips Issa over Libya probe)

Abramson, who described the paper's Libya coverage as "excellent and very muscular,” also suggested the hearings were politicized, telling Sullivan that she had told editors "to weigh the news value against the reality that congressional hearings are not all about fact-finding."

The argument that last month's attack in Benghazi has been politicized by Republicans is one the Obama campaign also made today. Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter today told CNN that "the entire reason that this has become the political topic it is is because of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan." Cutter called their criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the attack "reckless and irresponsible."

(Also on POLITICO: Cutter: Romney, Ryan politicized Benghazi attack)

But Sullivan disagrees: "I believe that the Libya hearing story belonged on the Times’s front page," she argues on the Times website today. "It had significant news value, regardless of the political maneuvering that is inevitable with less than four weeks to go until the election. And more broadly, there is a great deal of substance on this subject that warrants further scrutiny."

"I can’t think of many journalistic subjects that are more important right now, or more deserving of aggressive reporting," she writes.

(Also on POLITICO: Poll: Most troubled by Libya claim)

POLITICO reached out to Abramson and Baquet to see whether they wanted to expand on their remarks. New York Times spokespeople told POLITICO both had been clearly quoted in Sullivan's piece, and that Baquet said his comments in the piece "represent his thoughts on the matter."