After Just Seven Months, NYT Kills Off Ethicist's "Moral Of The Story" Blog. Randy Cohen Calls The Decision "Mutual."

The blog "pruning" promised last month by executive editor Bill Keller has begun. The NYT has quietly killed The Ethicist's blog, "Moral Of The Story," shutting it down in November after only seven months in existence.

Randy Cohen, the longtime "Ethicist" columnist for the NYT Magazine and the blog's sole contributor, confirmed to The NYTPicker that it was dead by a "mutual and amiable" decision of Cohen and his editors.

"Having produced 'Moral of the Story' for the term we'd agreed on, my editors and I decided not to continue it," Cohen told The NYTPicker via email. "I quite liked writing it, but I'm eager to devote my non-'Ethicist' time to other sorts of writing and am at work on a play."

The NYTPicker contacted Cohen and NYT spokeswoman Diane McNulty on Friday to inquire about the status of the blog, which Cohen hadn't updated since November 4.

McNulty told The NYTPicker at noon on Friday that she was "checking" on the blog's current status, but had yet to reply with a comment by Sunday evening.

Just last April, the NYT launched Cohen's blog -- devoted to deconstructing the ethical issues behind various news events and trends -- with a major splash on the website's front page. It addressed a multitude of diverse subjects: the nature of religious debate, the David Letterman scandal, where Michael Jackson should be buried, wolf hunting, and the propriety of magazines using Photoshop.

The blog posts often appeared several times in a week with long, discursive essays by Cohen, sometimes including followups addressing the hundreds of reader comments it generated. In August, Cohen took some heat from The NYTPicker -- and later changed his column -- after quoting his ex-wife, Katha Pollitt, as an expert in the column, and not disclosing their relationship.

Rumors have been flying in recent days about the possible closing of various NYT blogs. Keller warned of the prospect of blog cutbacks in November, telling the staff:

Many of our blogs serve a valuable journalistic purpose... But if we find instances where a blog or a vertical is consuming considerable effort and expense with little reward, we're prepared to do some pruning.

Despite the decision to close "Moral of the Story" last month, the NYT has left Cohen's blog up on the NYT website as though it's still in business -- complete with a rotating series of ads that include Toyota, Seroquel, JetBlue and Banana Republic. The final, November 4 post from Cohen explained a new format for commenting on the blog, and gave no hint of its imminent demise.

Did NYT's Unusual, Restrictive New Advertising Scheme Help Force Closing Of Broadway's "Brighton Beach Memoirs"?

It used to be that the NYT review could make or break the future of a Broadway show.

But in the case of "Brighton Beach Memoirs," an unusual, highly restrictive business deal between the NYT and the Broadway revival's producers -- one that offered substantial, heavily-discounted NYT advertising in exchange for exclusivity until after opening night -- may have hastened the show's quick demise.

In return for what was described to The NYTPicker by sources as a "three-ads-for-the-price-of-one" arrangement, the NYT deal dictated that "Brighton Beach Memoirs" couldn't advertise anywhere else. Those restrictions even included the far more powerful pull of local radio and television, and direct mail marketing.

A meager $500,000 in advance ticket sales led "Brighton Beach Memoirs" to close on November 1, after just 9 performances. The closing came despite rave reviews -- including a mostly-positive review from NYT theater critic Ben Brantley -- and a Neil Simon's long track record of success on Broadway.

And while the "Brighton Beach" producers don't blame the NYT arrangement entirely for the show's closing, they believe it was an important factor.

"We neglected the very audience we needed," one highly-placed "Brighton Beach" production source told The NYTPicker, referring directly to the NYT deal. "Direct mail builds a solid foundation and a healthy advance. We had neither."

The unusual arrangement was first reported last Wednesday in the New York Post, and has been confirmed to The NYTPicker by sources close to the production with first-hand knowledge of the NYT deal.

One production source told The NYTPicker that the NYT advertising deal involved a "very deep discount" for the full package, and identified Sharri Kaplan as the NYT advertising representative who presented producers with the so-called "pilot program" deal.

Diane McNulty, the NYT's spokeswoman, responded to questions from The NYTPicker Sunday afternoon with this emailed statement:

We don't discuss details of conversations we have with our advertisers. What I can tell you is that your sources' estimates are inaccurate, their description of the arrangement is inaccurate and their description of how the plan came about is inaccurate. In addition there are many factors which impact the success of Broadway plays including: ticket prices, reviews, subject matter, competitive alternatives etc.

No one disputes McNulty's last point. Reporter Patrick Healy's fascinating NYT page-one post-mortem on "Brighton Beach Memoirs" accurately noted other possible factors for its demise: changing audience tastes in comedy, the lack of any big-name stars, and the missing "wow" factor that sometimes turns flops into hits.

But unmentioned in Healy's account -- even though sources say the reporter was told of the arrangement by "Brighton Beach" producers -- was the NYT's advertising deal with the show.

For decades, the NYT generated a considerable portion of its advertising revenue from Broadway producers, who would routinely take out page after page of ads in the Sunday Arts & Leisure, Weekend and Arts sections to promote their shows. But in recent years, as producers seek a better return on their investment, much of that money has moved to television, radio and direct-mail marketing -- leaving the NYT with a tiny fraction of the theater advertising revenue it once commanded.

Now, the NYT may get even less -- as Broadway producers have been able to observe, via the "Brighton Beach" debacle, just how little influence NYT advertising has on advance ticket sales.

"Producers on other shows have seriously questioned this deal," the "Brighton Beach" production source told The NYTPicker. "While no one will abandon the Times, you will notice a huge reduction in the amount of theater advertising....I would seriously doubt anyone will ever take a deal like this again."

The results may already be evident. In yesterday's Arts & Leisure section, there wasn't a single full-page ad for any of the 35 shows currently on Broadway -- and less than two full pages of theater advertising in total, including the NYT's paid "Theater Directory" listings.

Broadway insiders blame the shift away from NYT advertising on the paper's exorbitant rates -- which are higher for theater than for some other forms of entertainment, and which don't deliver enough returns to justify the price.

"These days, a New York Times ad is a vanity thing, a way for producers to show off to their friends," one top theater advertising-agency executive told The NYTPicker. "It doesn't sell tickets."

The "Brighton Beach" insider told The NYTPicker that the lack of direct-mail advertising and radio -- specifically prohibited by the NYT deal -- helped doom the show.

"Theatergoers tell us that they choose the shows based on a variety of things: what they read, what they've heard from people they trust and some blend of advertising and press," the insider said. "They may not know the difference."

That may explain why, even with this exclusive arrangement in place, the "Brighton Beach" producers weren't able to reach today's target Broadway ticket buyers, those who attend at least three shows a year and are accustomed to getting direct-mail discounts.

"If you don't get the Westchester housewife to buy tickets for her and her husband, your show is going to close," the theater-advertising executive said. "She's listening to the radio in her car or reading her direct mail flyers, not flipping through Arts & Leisure."

Beyond that explanation, even simple logic suggests that the NYT arrangement was counterproductive to its revenue goals. Had outside advertising generated enough ticket sales to keep the show running, the NYT might have eventually gotten enough advertising to justify the discount. Think about it, guys!

Sadly, this arrangement appears to reflect, in part, the NYT's delusional arrogance about itself as an important player in the Broadway community. It appears the NYT myopically convinced itself that if the "Brighton Beach" arrangement worked, it could conceivably market the approach to other reluctant theater advertisers.

Now, no such luck.

And in a somewhat bitter irony for both sides, the NYT's arrangement included running a full-page ad for "Brighton Beach Memoirs" in the Arts & Leisure section on Sunday, November 1 -- the day the show closed.

BREAKING: NYT Accuses Washington Post Editor Marcus Brauchli Of Lying To NYT Reporter About "Off The Record" Dinners.

The NYT is calling Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of the Washington Post, a liar.

The NYT has reported this morning -- in a brief, buried "postscript" in the corrections column -- that it now has evidence that Brauchli lied last July when he told the NYT that he didn't know the paper's controversial corporate-sponsored dinner parties would be off-the-record.

The NYT doesn't state flatly that Brauchli lied. But the juxtaposition of the two Brauchli statements in the postscript make clear the NYT's position that he misrepresented the truth in interviews with the NYT.

[UPDATE: In an email to The NYTPicker, a NYT spokeswoman stands by the postscript. "The note speaks for itself," wrote Diane McNulty, the spokeswoman. "Information came to our attention after the Sept. 12 article and we decided that this note was warranted." McNulty did not elaborate.]

In a July 3 page-one story, Richard Perez-Pena reported that the Post had abandoned plans to hold high-priced dinners that would bring together Washington lobbyists and Washington Post reporters and editors. The news created a media firestorm around the idea that the Post would sell access to its staff to business interests, and led to the resignation of the Post's marketing executive, Charles Pelton.

At the time, Brauchli told Perez-Pena that he'd been explicit with the paper's marketing department about the paper's right to use information gathered at the dinners -- a distinction that enabled the editor to maintain a discreet distance from the scandal. The July 3 NYT story reported:

Mr. Brauchli said that in talking to The Post’s marketing arm, “we have always been explicit that there are certain parameters that are elemental for newsroom participation” in special events. Among those, he said, “we do not limit our questions, and we reserve the right to allow any ideas that emerge in an event to shape or inform our coverage.”

Brauchli extended that claim to a flat denial of knowledge that the dinners would be off the record, in a NYT story in September reporting the resignation of Pelton:

Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of The Post, and Ms. Weymouth said they should have recognized the ethical issues created by the plan and ended it earlier. But they said they had not known all the details of how the dinners were being promoted — for instance, Mr. Brauchli said he had not understood that they would be off the record — and that those details significantly compounded the ethical problems.

But in this morning's "Postscript," the NYT reports that Pelton's lawyer has provided them a letter from Brauchli to Pelton that proves otherwise:

However, in a subsequent letter to Mr. Pelton — which was sent to The Times by Mr. Pelton’s lawyer — Mr. Brauchli now says that he did indeed know that the dinners were being promoted as “off the record,” and that he and Mr. Pelton had discussed that issue.

The "Postscript" doesn't quote from the letter. However, by placing in its corrections column, the NYT is making the bold statement that the two previous statements by Brauchli to the NYT were false.

This represents a new development in the story. Andrew Alexander, the Washington Post's ombudsman, reported in July that several mid-level managers knew of the ethical problems created by the dinners, but continued to absolve Brauchli of direct responsibility, repeating Brauchli's claim that he was "stunned" by the news. Here's what Alexander reported on July 12:

Brauchli conferred with Pelton about the salon dinners. At one point they showed up at the newsroom desk of reporter Ceci Connolly, who covers health care, which was to be the discussion topic of the July 21 dinner. Subsequently, she said, "Charles asked me for some contact phone numbers and e-mails, which I provided."

Brauchli said that Pelton believed that "in order for these things to succeed, they need to be on background. And I think the language went from 'background' to 'off the record' which, from my perspective now, [is] even worse."

Alexander absolved Brauchli -- and publisher Katharine Weymouth -- of any direct knowledge of the parameters until the story broke on the Politico website on July 2. He reported that Brauchli forwarded Pelton's May email outlining the plans to top newsroom managers, but does not suggest that Brauchli read it himself, or knew in advance that the dinners wouldn't meet the Post's ethical standards.

Why did the NYT not report this news in the paper itself, where the rules of journalism might have applied -- and where a reporter might have called Brauchli for his comment on the discrepancy? Was it hoping to bury the news on a Saturday, when the media hordes might not descend on Brauchli over this apparent contradiction? The NYT's brief statement doesn't address those specific questions.

UPDATE: In Brauchli's letter to former Post marketing executive Charles Pelton -- the basis for this morning's NYT "postscript" accusing Brauchli of lying to the paper -- Brauchli claims that the NYT reporter "apparently misunderstood me."

In acknowledging for the first time that he knew the controversial dinners were off the record, Brauchli said he explained to NYT reporter Richard Perez-Pena that "my original intention had been that the dinners would take place under Chatham House Rule -- meaning that the conversations could be used for further reporting without identifying the speaker or the speaker's affiliation."

Brauchli stated definitively to Pelton in the letter that "I knew that the salon dinners were being promoted as 'off the record.'"

But when Perez-Pena's stories appeared and suggested otherwise, Brauchli made no attempt to clarify or correct the NYT articles. "I should have said something at that point but did not," Brauchli wrote in the letter to Pelton, dated September 25, and published this morning by Politico.

However, in McNulty's statement to The NYTPicker today that "the note speaks for itself," the NYT is clearly stating that it doesn't believe Brauchli's version of events. The postscript made no mention of Brauchli's claim in the letter that he had been misunderstood.

UPDATE: "The letter speaks for itself," says Kris Coratti, communications director of the Washington Post, in an email to The NYTPicker responding to our requests for comment from Brauchli. It's probably not a coincidence that Coratti's comment is virtually identical to McNulty's statement on behalf of the NYT earlier today.

What If Maureen Dowd Is Lying? And What If Her "Friend" Works For The NYT? We Examine The Evidence.

As usual, public editor Clark Hoyt failed in his most basic job as a journalist yesterday. He took a news source's story at her word, without performing the job he's paid to do: determine the facts.

Hoyt joined the chorus of those who don't label what Maureen Dowd did -- publishing the words of blogger Josh Marshall under her byline in her May 13 column -- as plagiarism. In his column yesterday, Hoyt reported that he interviewed Dowd, who told him that "the passage in question was part of an email conversation" with a friend.

That means we now supposedly know for certain what we'd previously been forced to assume -- that Dowd cut and pasted the passage from her friend's email and into her column.

This action prompted Hoyt to draw a typically baffling conclusion. "I do not think Dowd plagiarized," Hoyt wrote, "but I also do not think what she did was right."

That is what is known as a distinction without a difference.

But what's truly significant about Hoyt's column is what it didn't tell us, and what questions it left unanswered.

Here's what we still don't know about the Dowd case -- two crucial questions The NYTPicker posed in two separate emails to the NYT last week, which got no response:

Did Dowd disclose to Hoyt, or to her editors at the NYT, the identity of the "friend" whose email she allegedly copied?

Has Dowd been asked to shown the friend's email, or their correspondence, to anyone -- either Hoyt or her editors -- to back up her version of what happened?

In the absence of any response, we assume the answer to both questions is no. A NYT spokeswoman specifically said last week that "there is no need to do anything further since there is no allegation, hint or anything else from Marshall that this was anything but an error."

But what if the person whose work was appropriated has his own reasons for not pursuing allegations of plagiarism?

We think that's a relevant and important issue in this story that hasn't been addressed -- in some ways, perhaps the most relevant to the NYT's inadequate handling of the Dowd accusations -- and we'll come back to it.

But first, we want to explain why we still wonder whether Maureen Dowd is lying, and what we think she could be lying about.

***

The longer the NYT goes without telling us what it knows -- and the longer Dowd goes without elaborating on her sketchy excuse for what happened -- the more our mind wanders to a series of troubling questions about her explanation for what happened.

Why is Dowd not publicly addressing certain aspects of the story of her friend and the email?

Dowd has a stellar record as an ethical journalist, and a teller of truth. But any student of plagiarism knows it's commonplace for the accused to mask their deception. In the 2003 case of Jayson Blair -- whose road to ruin began with accusations of plagiarism lodged by a Texas newspaper reporter -- the young NYT reporter vehemently denied having plagiarized, and even produced notes to document his supposed "reporting." It wasn't until the NYT investigated Blair, and uncovered a pattern of deceptions and fabrications, that Blair acknowledged his guilt.

We're not suggesting that even in a worst-case scenario, Dowd could have committed a journalistic breach even remotely on the level of Jayson Blair. But we do believe an internal investigation is appropriate and necessary whenever anyone is accused of plagiarism, and no matter who is complaining.

Why is Dowd protecting the identity of her friend? Is it for reasons that would cause more problems for her or the NYT?

In Dowd's initial email statement, she referred to her "friend" without any reference to gender. However, in a followup email to The NYTPicker, Dowd referred to the friend as a "he." She has made no further comment about the friend's identity, except to say that it wasn't Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, who is widely known as a frequent confidant of the columnist.

Why is Dowd protecting the identity of her friend? And why hasn't her friend come forward to accept responsibility for the plagiarism, exonerating Dowd? Isn't that what friends are for?

The fact that the friend hasn't spoken up -- or been identified -- suggests that Dowd doesn't want her source identified for some reason. But what could that reason be?

One possible theory is that her "friend" works for the NYT. Wouldn't that present additional complications for both Dowd and the paper? Think about it: if a NYT reporter or editor were demonstrated to be the source of the plagiarism, the NYT goes from being a concerned spectator to an active participant in the act.

Dowd's incomplete explanation has left many readers -- including prominent media critics like Jack Shafer at Slate -- waiting for details. Shafer called her story "a tad incomplete" and advised: "The best and perhaps only way for Dowd to set things right will be to...tell her readers in detail how she came to commit this transgression."

Dowd hasn't done so. We emailed Dowd last night with the same questions we posed to the NYT last week -- about whether she produced any evidence to support her story to her editors. We also asked her if her "friend" was an employee of the NYT. She hasn't responded.

***

You may be thinking that we're a little too quick to question Dowd -- that with a Pulitzer Prize and a sparkling career as a columnist on her resume, that there's no reason to doubt her word.

But when you consider Dowd's curious avoidance of full disclosure last Sunday about the allegations of plagiarism, it's impossible not to wonder why she was being so evasive in answering simple questions -- and whether that suggested some element of deceit.

In her first email to The NYTPicker last Sunday night, Dowd explained that "I was talking to a friend Friday about what I was writing."

Now, a week later, we know that wasn't true.

It turns out Dowd wasn't "talking," she was emailing. It's a distinction that Dowd was smart enough to understand last Sunday. She knew that by using the word "talking," she was intending us to consider it a verbal communication.

When we followed up with Dowd last Sunday to ask if the friend had "dictated" the quote, Dowd definitively said "no," and added: "We were going back and forth discussing the topic of the column."

Yet again, Dowd deflected the question of how the line got transmitted.

When we pressed the point a third time, Dowd again avoided giving a direct answer. "A friend suggested I make this point," Dowd wrote us. "I paid attention and made the point." Still no answer to our direct inquiry about how it was transmitted.

We sent a fourth email with the same question and another about the identity of the friend; this time, she ignored the question about whether it was dictated or emailed, and instead just denied that the friend was Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic.

We asked a fifth time. This time Dowd disclosed: "It's a friend I talk to by phone and email." But still no answer about how the quote got communicated.

Our last email exchange -- when we asked for the sixth time whether the Marshall line came to her via email or by phone -- she said curtly: "I thought I said here it was someone I talk to on both."

And that was Dowd's final contact with the NYTPicker, or anyone else, until she finally told Hoyt that the line came in what Hoyt called an "email conversation."

The more we examine Dowd's responses to us last Sunday, the more convinced we become that her determination not to answer has some deeper explanation than a simple failure to comprehend the question.

***

Why was Dowd deflecting such a simple inquiry? Why, when asked whether NYT editors had checked out Dowd's story, did the NYT's spokespeople fall silent? Why did Clark Hoyt not even bring up the identity of the friend, or pursue any reporting of his own on the email in question?

It all comes down to Dowd's own prominence as a NYT columnist, and the power of the NYT to intimidate its critics.

Even Clark Hoyt -- whose job is to question, to doubt, and to investigate the institution that pays his salary -- seemed cowed by Dowd. Instead of describing the episode as a legitimate inquiry into a possible plagiarism, he cast it as a web-based feeding frenzy.

"The Internet was soon aflame with charges of plagiarism," Hoyt wrote today, implying that the print world wasn't nearly so convinced of Dowd's sins.

And Hoyt repeated Marshall's own comment on the matter, which had become the basis for the NYT's belief that the Dowd story warranted no further attention. "We're too quick to pull the trigger with charges of plagiarism," Marshall posted on his website, adding that the correction the NYT published was "pretty much the end of it."

But Hoyt failed to note the obvious fact that Marshall -- like Dowd, a political commentator, but unlike Dowd, a blogger -- had every reason to want to avoid a conflict with one of the nation's most powerful columnists, and the newspaper of record.

Is it worth noting that a little over a year ago, the NYT published a laudatory 1400-word profile of Marshall by Noam Cohen, in connection with winning a George Polk Award? We think it is. We don't doubt Marshall's integrity for a second, but we also figure that a fight with the NYT -- and Maureen Dowd -- over a plagiarism accusation was the last thing he wanted to engage in last week.

Here's our point. If the only standard the NYT follows in deciding whether to investigate plagiarism is whether the victim wants to press charges, doesn't it risk the regular possibility that journalists won't want to do battle with a place that could one day employ them?

We could easily see the day when Marshall could become a contender for an op-ed column at the NYT. Isn't it possible he wouldn't want to risk the damage to those chances that a plagiarism fight would create? Dozens -- probably hundreds -- of top journalists would probably want to avoid such a fight even if their work was plagiarized, and for the same reason. Add Maureen Dowd to the mix, and you've got some excellent motivation to stand down.

We're arguing for an objective standard for plagiarism investigations -- one that applies equally to all reporters and columnists, regardless of whether the victim feels victimized or not. NYT readers ought to know that the paper's editors remain vigilant to protect basic standards of integrity, whether forced to or not by bloggers, media critics or Public Editors.

***

We were grateful that Maureen Dowd decided to respond to our emails last week, and we've been appreciative in the past that NYT editors and public-relations personnel have answered our questions. We've gotten the distinct sense that the NYT likes the fact that we don't just make assertions; we also ask questions, do reporting, and seek to present the truth.

The reason for this post tonight is that we have waited five days for the NYT to respond to our questions, and have been forced to assume -- by the uncharacteristic silence of Catherine Mathis and her lieutenant, Diane McNulty -- that the NYT is unwilling to disclose whether it has investigated any of Dowd's assertions.

It's important to note here that we're not asking the NYT to disclose the identity of her friend, or to release the text of the email. All we want to know is whether Dowd's editors know who the friend is, and whether they've seen the email for themselves.

If the answer to those questions is yes, then we'll believe Dowd's story.

But as long as the NYT declines to answer our questions, we'll keep wondering whether Dowd was been lying in her emails to The NYTPicker last week. And the more we read them, the more we wonder.

***

In the seven months since The NYTPicker began publishing, we have occasionally been called "cowards" by those who believe our anonymity diminishes our credibility. If we were willing to put our names behind our reporting, the theory goes, we'd be more deserving of respect.

But we hope it's obvious to our readers -- who have followed our efforts to report the Dowd story through interviews and analysis of the facts and statements available to us -- that we're not a shoot-from-the-hip blog that makes ad hominem attacks on its subjects, or applies personal invective to our commentary.

We have the utmost respect for Maureen Dowd and the NYT, and want nothing more than to see her cleared of these accusations. But we see no way for that to happen unless she, or the NYT, comes clean about what happened -- or at least to tell us she's produced evidence to document her story.

If there is any coward in the events of the last week, it's Dowd and her "friend." If either of them had come forward to her editors with the details of what happened between them -- enough to document Dowd's story beyond suspicion -- then discussion of this supposed "plagiarism" would have long been over.

But by hiding behind Josh Marshall's unwillingness to challenge the NYT, Dowd and her friend -- and the NYT itself -- are shielding themselves from legitimate questioning in a way that the NYT and Dowd would never allow in the people and institutions they cover. Why does Dowd have the right to demand courage and transparency from the rest of the world, while not offering any of her own?

That is the behavior of a coward who has something to hide.