Paper May Sue White House AideRemember Karl Zinsmeister, the Washington-hating conservative editor picked by Bush to replace Claude “Sticky Fingers” Allen as new White House domestic policy adviser?
That’s right, the one who selectively edited quotes and details in a published newspaper profile of himself, and posted his “improved” version on his magazine’s Web site.
Now, the newspaper — the Syracuse, N.Y. New Times alt-weekly — says it is considering “legal action” against Zinsmeister. From Editor and Publisher:
[New Times editor Molly] English said the paper had not decided if it will, or can, take any legal action against Zinsmeister for altering its content and presenting it as the original version. But she said a lawyer is being consulted. “It is a tough one. I am not sure, frankly, what we could do,” she said. “We haven’t gotten to that point.”
Before the paper’s lawyers could get to Zinsmeister, however, the Washington Post editorial page fired off its own condemnation of the man’s covert red-penning (which it has dubbed “Zinsmeistering”):
Almost anyone who’s been the subject of a profile has wished he or she could take back some words, maybe tweak them a bit. No one else that we know of — certainly no one who’s about to become the president’s chief adviser on domestic policy — has had the gall to simply make those changes unilaterally… . Imagine how convenient it would be for the administration if it could do this with all reporting.