How Recent Is "Recent"?

Yesterday's (September 16th, 2006) Vijaya Karnataka has an article titled " ಸಂಪಾದಕನ ವಿರುದ್ಧ ಇಡೀ ದೇಶವೇ ತಿರುಗಿ ಬಿದ್ದರೆ?" in the "ಸುದ್ದಿಮನೆ ಕತೆ".

It is about Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times and his decision to publish an article about the existance of a secret warrantless eavesdropping program.

As per this article:

ಇತ್ತೀಚೆಗೆ ಅಮೆರಿಕ ಅಧ್ಯಕ್ಷ ಜಾರ್ಜ್ ಬುಷ್ ತನ್ನ ವೈಟ್‌ಹೌಸ್‌ನ ಓವಲ್ ಕಚೇರಿಗೆ ಬಿಲ್ ಕೆಲ್ಲರ್ ಹಾಗೂ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಪ್ರಕಾಶಕ ಆರ್ಥರ್ ಕುಲ್ಜಬರ್ಗರ್ (sic) ಜೂನಿಯರ್ ಅವರನ್ನು ಕರೆಸಿದ್ದರು.

The question is how recent ("ಇತ್ತೀಚೆಗೆ") is this "recently"?

The New York Times article was published on December 16th 2005***. Keller and Sulzberger visited 11 days before that article got published.

We know "recently" is relative. But, is 9 months+ "recently"? Especially for a daily newspaper? We are just asking.

The article starts with a reference to the recent coverstory in the New York magazine:

ಇತ್ತೀಚಿನ 'ನ್ಯೂಯಾರ್ಕ್' ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಮುಖಪುಟ ಲೇಖನದ ಶೀರ್ಷಿಕೆ- The United States of America Vs Bill Keller

If you are intrigued by the VK article and want to read the New York Magazine article, you can find it here. BTW, if you read the Vijaya Karnataka article and the New York Magazine coverstory, you may find that it is not just the "ಶೀರ್ಷಿಕೆ" that caught the eye of "ಸುದ್ದೀಶ".

Towards the end of the VK article it is mentioned, rather abruptly without any explanation:

ಅದೇನೇ ಇರಲಿ ಟೈಮ್ಸ್ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಪಬ್ಲಿಕ್ ಎಡಿಟರ್ ಬೈರಾನ್ ಕೆಲವು ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಕೆಲ್ಲರ್ ಉತ್ತರಿಸಲು ನಿರಾಕರಿಸಬಾರದಿತ್ತು ಎಂಬ ಮಾತು ಸಹ ಕೇಳಿ ಬರುತ್ತಿದೆ.

If you are like us, you would be curious to know about those questions of Byron Calame (ಸುದ್ದೀಶ seems to be in first-name basis with him!) that Bill Keller stonewalled.

We feel that they are interesting --if not important -- questions and hence need a bit of an explanation.

The questions are about the timing of the publication of the NYT story.

The NYT knew about the existance of the (possibly illegal) warrantless eavesdropping program for more than year before it evetually published it in December of 2005. According to some critics of the Bush administration and the NYT, the delay in publishing it might have helped Bush in 2004 elections.

Initially the NYT claimed that it delayed the publication "for a year", seeming to imply that it did not know about the existance of the program before the elections in November of 2004. But, later it was learnt that the NYT delayed the story by 14 months and that it could have clearly published it before the November 2004 elections had it chosen to do that.

Many feel that this may have damaged the reputation and the public trust of The Times in general and Bill Keller in particular.

People get upset with the NYT and Keller when they term 14 months as "for a year". And we rant about VK terming 9 months+ as "ಇತ್ತೀಚೆಗೆ". Notice any irony?!

(Correction:
*** Our post read "2006" instead of "2005". My thanks to the reader --"noora ombattu sullu" -- for alerting us about this.)