Inspired by a Todd Gitlin post over at Talking Points Memo, here’s how I think the NYT could have done its McCain breakout better:
Per Todd, I suggest this as what would have been a much better breakout.
A. You commit to running a multi-part story. The drip, drip, drip of political scandal on the installment plan is a killer.
B. Part one is something like Michael Isikoff wrote for Newsweek just after the NYT story broke. No hints of Schmuck Talk using his schmuck, just the fiscal angle. Tie back to Keating Five and parallels more strongly, another way the actual NYT story was kind of weak. Show patterns.
Meanwhile, you press your sources to talk more, even if obliquely, about the hanky-panky. Also meanwhile, see if you can find a further pattern. Iserman jumped from secretary to partner awfully quickly. See if there's fire behind the smoke there.
C. Then, if it's as solid as what the NYT actually ran, especially if the sources gave you even an ounce of additional quotes, you run the hanky-panky as part two. Tie back to McCain's history with ex-wife No. 1. Whether Iserman's career ladder-climb was due to office sex or whatever, run that in a sidebar.
D. By this time, with the two stories running 3-7 days apart, more stuff to investigate will probably come over somebody's transom.
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