Lobbyist Vicki Iseman, whom The New York Times may or may not have implied, a year ago, had an affair with John McCain (and the NYT can’t do anything about reader inferences as to what it did or did not imply, or intend to imply) has a pennies-on-the-dollar settlement with the newspaper (not literally, in terms of money), which primarily consists of the paper publishing an online column written by her attorneys, and an NYT “note to readers” in Friday’s print edition.
Given that the NYT didn’t have to give Iseman any money (other that, possibly, lawyers’ fees; that’s unclear), my parsing of the original article, above the first link, should sum up this issue.
I think it’s clear the newspaper won this baby. It just, in today’s newspaper fiscal world, didn’t want to spend any more money on attorneys.
As a newspaper editor myself, if I ever were in a similar situation, I KNOW I would feel like I had won.
Take, for example, the stipulated verbal announcement language of the settlement.
The NYT never outrightly said Iseman/McCain had an affair in the first place. So, it's definitely no skin to stipulate that. As for the "imply," well, the NYT can't do a thing about what readers inferred it implied. The settlement language not mentioning that shows how tissue-thin it is.. As for the “intent” issue, the question of Iseman being a “public person” or not is irrelevant. It’s tough to prove intent, period, in a civil case, without a big smoking gun. Especially, since the NYT “note to readers” says it did not “intend to conclude” (emphasis added) a relationship existed.
In short, the NYT did not withdraw a single word of the original story, and did not offer an apology on behalf of its readers’ inferences about any NYT intent.
In fact, it’s arguable Iseman lost, by having such a weak settlement rather than withdrawing the suit entirely. Now, she and her lawyers have brought new attention to herself and the story.
If Ben Smith thinks she won it shows how much of an idiot he is.
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