Maybe Time managing editor Richard Stengel is trying to make some kind of point. Last weekend, on national television, Stengel explained his perspective on the prosecutor purge scandal. “I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them. Because it shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance,” Stengel said. “That’s not what voters want to see.”
After taking some flak for the comment, Stengel acknowledged that Democrats going after Rove is “interesting” in an “objective way for Time and for journalists in general,” though he didn’t mention whether the substance of the controversy is interesting to him or not.
I think we now know the answer to that one.
Is Time trying to bury the attorney general scandal that’s seized Washington, D.C., for the past three months? In just the last week, new documents emerged contradicting Alberto Gonzales’s account of his role in the firings, a low-level Department of Justice staffer announced her intent to plead the Fifth if asked to testify before Congress, and Justice officials admitted that it had misled Congress when it denied last month that Karl Rove played a role in deciding which U.S. attorneys got the boot. Yet the new issue of Time, on stands today, contains precisely zero stories on the scandal. Nothing. As though it’s not happening.
You could chalk it up to atrocious news judgment, or laziness perhaps, but then there’s the bizarre hostility that Time’s editors have expressed regarding coverage of the firings.
One should be cautious about throwing around phrases like “journalistic malpractice” casually, but for the nation’s leading news-weekly to entirely ignore the nation’s biggest political controversy, just as it’s reaching crisis mode for the White House and the Justice Department, at a minimum raises questions about the magazine’s editorial judgment.
To be fair, Time altered its publishing schedule recently, and the new issue was released today, making it practically impossible to offer any kind of meaningful coverage of yesterday’s Sampson hearings. Also, Time did report on a new poll, which at least mentions the story in passing.
But given the circumstances, it’s hard to fathom why the controversy has been given short shrift.
Indeed, there were plenty of key developments in this story earlier in the week, any and all of which would have made good copy. A senior Justice Department official has taken the 5th, Gonzales gave an unpersuasive interview on national television, Republican lawmakers are increasingly unwilling to defend the DoJ’s decision making, the White House is getting antsy, new questions have arisen every day this week about exactly what happened and why.
But Time magazine, to borrow its editor’s word, finds all of this so “uninteresting” that there’s no need to even mention it to readers.
But, Time’s defenders might say, maybe the magazine wants to be forward-looking. Perhaps the editors don’t want to offer readers details on what’s happened, and would prefer to cover what’s going to happen. OK, then how about a story about the ongoing fight over subpoenas? And suspicious RNC email accounts? And resignations?
All right, Time’s defenders concede, but maybe the magazine devoted so much coverage to this story last week, it toned down coverage (to zero) this week. That might be compelling, except Time offered a total of 300 words to the story in the last issue.
Democrats, in control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 12 years, are determined to reclaim what they can. And the U.S. Attorneys case gives them powerful new ammunition.
Just getting Karl Rove and other top White House officials to testify could be as important as anything they might say, since it would set a precedent of sorts as Democrats push to investigate internal White House deliberations on everything from Iraq-war contracting to the use of prewar intelligence. Bush is resisting, offering to give only limited interviews with lawmakers with no transcript. Anything more than that, he says, would be an infringement on presidential privilege.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales remains a likely casualty, but the history of past scandals suggests his resignation would not be enough to end the current one. Hearings will be held, subpoenas issued, new investigations launched. And when it’s over, we’ll be hard-pressed to remember how it began.
That’s the whole thing. Two weeks ago was slightly better — Time offered two short stories on the story totaling 800 words — but for the nation’s leading news magazine, it’s awfully weak.
It’s on the front page of every major daily for weeks, but Time can’t bring itself to let readers know it’s unfolding in serious ways in Washington. What’s more, as far as the public is concerned, if Time doesn’t think it’s worth covering, maybe it’s not that big a deal.
C’mon, Time, you can do better than this.