[Explanatory note: This is a new version of my original post which I published 24 hours ago but which was later abducted by hooded internet kidnappers. Despite the issuance of an APB, the post appears to have vanished without a trace. -civil truth]

The New York Times printed yesterday an editorial by its Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, that sharply criticizes the paper’s decision to publish a controversial profile on John McCain last Thursday.

While noting that documentation of Sen. McCain’s having had an affair would have been a story of “unquestionable importance,” Mr. Hoyt concludes that in the absence of a smoking gun, Mr. Keller’s explanation of his decision to publish does not hold water. The key paragraph:

I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

Interestingly, most of Mr. Hoyt’s criticism focuses on the unsupported suggestion of a sexual affair, which he honestly and thoroughly dissects. However, he seems to assume without serious inquiry that the article’s discussion of Sen. McCain’s complex relationship with lobbyists was worthy of publication, as his column contains only these two paragraphs examining the remaining portion of the article that did not refer to Sen. McCain’s possible tryst.

The pity of it is that, without the sex, The Times was on to a good story. McCain, who was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 for exercising “poor judgment” by intervening with federal regulators on behalf of a corrupt savings and loan executive, recast himself as a crusader against special interests and the corrupting influence of money in politics. Yet he has continued to maintain complex relationships with lobbyists like Iseman, at whose request he wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a speed-up on a decision affecting one of her clients.

Much of that story has been reported over the years, but it was still worth pulling together to help voters in 2008 better understand the John McCain who might be their next president.

In his blithe assertion that this history “was still worth pulling together,” Mr. Hoyt does not address, for instance, whether the standard of evaluation of Mr. McCain’s lobbying relationships was consistent with the standards used to evaluate other politicians – and if not consistent, whether there was a defensible reason for these different standards or whether this different treatment was the result of partisan bias.

Nor does he address the broader issue as to whether the article’s narrative of Sen. McCain’s political interactions with lobbyists met journalistic standards of fairness and accuracy.

And in that regard, Mr. Hoyt seems to have a blind spot: he observes the reaction of many readers critical of the reference to possible sexual misconduct, but he seems to have not taken seriously criticisms that the article as a whole was tainted by partisan bias.

While some may view this to be a cover-up, I would give Mr. Hoyt the benefit of the doubt and attribute this to a blindness: one cannot question what one just does not see or think to question.

Thus more than the story content itself, Mr. Hoyt’s examination of the story and the blindness to bias that he displays is perhaps even more revealing of the media culture of which the New York Times imbibes deeply.

(Update: February 25, 2008 5:20 PM)
See this follow-up article for further discussion of the issue of partisan bias at the New York Times.