A couple days ago

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

A couple days ago, Andrew Sullivan clipped this damning passage from a new Vanity Fair article on Howell Raines …

Worse, Raines would not let facts get in the way of a story he had ordered up or a point he decided to make. “Howell wanted a thought inserted high in one of my stories,” says a metro reporter. “The only problem was, it wasn’t true. Mind you, this was on my beat, a beat he didn’t really know about. I said to the editor who was the message-bearer that it wasn’t true, and it didn’t belong in the story, period. A while later he came back to me and said, ‘Well, you’re right, but Howell wants it anyway.’ It became clear that the editor had not fully conveyed my arguments to Howell, because he was afraid to. I said, ‘F— that — I’ll tell him myself.’ And he literally seized my arm and said, ‘You don’t want to do that.’ And ultimately the editor-intermediary and I compromised on a version of what Howell wanted that was just vague enough not to mean much, but still close enough to a falsehood to make my very uncomfortable.”

Remind you of anyone?

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: