Time gets assist in Bush re-election?

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 3:38 PM on August 25, 2005.

John Aravosis is pissed and you are about to join him.

At the end of Editor & Publisher's story on the big LA Times Rovegate piece that everyone's talking about, is this passage:

"If Time magazine had gone public about Rove's conversations with Cooper, it might have had some impact on the Bush-Kerry race for the White House last year."

"Not until this summer did Cooper ask Rove for a waiver to talk to the grand jury, and ultimately the public, about their conversation. The L.A. Times article today notes that he did not do this before 'because his lawyer advised against it.' But the reporters add that in addition, 'Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.'"

"The story concludes: 'The result was that Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection.'"

Aravosis fumes: "It's one thing for TIME to do its job and ignore the effects of its reporting and overall work on US elections, it's quite another for TIME to make decisions BASED ON whether they'll influence US elections. That's about as journalistically unethical as it comes, and makes TIME no better than FOX News." (Americablog)

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.