We were surprised when the reporter for the NYT came out. She started interviewing Don, Angelwood and me, but she quickly turned the interview into a debate.
A Washington Post reporter arrived and Don spoke with him as Angelwood and I continued debating the NYT reporter. The interview was more like Crossfire. She kept defending her paper and its management while Angelwood and I kept hammering away.
She even insisted that we should be protesting at NYT HQ in NYC rather than the D.C. bureau.
She also kept bringing up Stephen Glass's plagiarism while at the New Republic as the same as what's been going on at her paper. While she finally conceded a few points, she continued to argue that it was debatable whether Maureen Dowd mischaracterized President Bush's recent remarks about Al-Qaeda.
All in all, it was the most contentious interview we've done since Bill Clinton's impeachment. It'll be interesting to see what, if any, of this is reported by The Times.
That must be part of their interview training process. When interviewing, if you don't get the desired answers try to argue with them instead of just getting the facts and then report nothing. When they finaly find someone with the desired answer, that is reported as the unanimous concensus. It appears to me that the reporter was simply proving the point about their lack of honest reporting.