I don't regard the NYT as better than the National Enquirer (which has broken some serious news stories in recent years, most memorably re Jesse Jackson using Rainbow coalition funds to pay for his mistress and "love child", and re Hugh Rodham's fat payoffs for lobbying Bill Clinton to pardon a couple of slimeballs). It's in poor taste to run this story about Rush, but given that it was made public by law enforcement authorities, a reasonable editor might assume there was really something to it, and go ahead and "break" the story while waiting for more details to come out -- if he HAD committed an offense that would have cancelled his plea deal, it WOULD have been real news, and the NYT would have looked silly for being the last to mention it, since most other major media outlets seem to have followed the lead of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office and publicized the story.