Someone who commented on my Halberstam post the other day mentioned various Times execs, including deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, and I’ve been thinking about my sole interaction with Landman, which left me impressed. A year ago I wrote an article about former Times executive editor Howell Raines for New York Magazine, and I talked to a ton of Times reporters. Almost to a man, they asked for quote approval. I forget names, and that doesn’t matter; as any journalist can tell you, and Scooter Libby, too, this is now a common practice among people in public life (as opposed to, say, the people approached by the media because they’ve lost a family member in a tragedy): A person agrees to be a source on condition that you talk off the record and then check the quotes you want to use later. This is just the air we breathe as journalists, and I suspect that almost all journalists accept these terms. Though it is probably against newspapers’ policies; and so readers ought to know about the practice. There ought to be an open discussion of the matter. Of course it’s also interesting that the reporters who depend most on sources to do their work become fearful when they become sources. Maybe because they’ve been inside the sausage factory, and know how it works. Cynical-making.
All this to say that when Jon Landman called me back, he didn’t put me through that business. I asked questions, he talked, I took notes. I gather he’s that way with all interviewers. That’s character.
