The Associated Press has a similar set of rules, as do many newspapers. The A.P.’s standards editor, Tom Kent, has cautioned against treating impartiality as “easy road kill in the rush to new journalistic techniques.” Some prominent journalists have gone so far as to say that, to preserve neutrality, they don’t even vote.

Would Times readers have been better off if Mr. Powell had taken his early reporting on this story and handed it off to a reporter, or reporting team, whose personal politics would not come under fire?

Ms. Ryan says no. She told me that Mr. Powell, with his reportorial skills and deep knowledge of New York and New Jersey, was the right choice, noting that he managed to get several members of a grand jury to speak to him — not an easy feat. She also noted that this is not a first: Mr. Powell and other news-side (as opposed to Op-Ed) columnists have stepped away from their columns to write investigative pieces before.

“There’s no question that Michael was the right person to write this story,” she said. Mr. Baquet told me that the story withstood “a very high level of scrutiny” that helped ensure its thoroughness and balance.

Mr. Drewniak’s objections do not include any factual errors. He complained, though, of “gross omissions” and “unsubstantiated leaps of faith,” and wrote of fighting an uphill battle, during the reporting process, against Mr. Powell’s “preset narrative.” He gave me many examples of columns in which Mr. Powell criticized Mr. Christie, once calling him “congenitally pugilistic,” and, as recently as January, writing that the governor “can be rude and petty and play a mean game of politics.” Asked about this, Mr. Powell and Ms. Ryan noted that the column had also sometimes presented Mr. Christie in a favorable light.

The journalism world is changing. In the broadest terms, transparency (lifting the curtain so that readers see and understand the process and the players) has become more important; traditional objectivity (the idea that reporters should appear to have no beliefs) less so. Within the whirlwind, journalists need to hold on tight to accuracy, intellectual honesty, rigorous reporting and fairness — values that can never go out of style.