From the New Orleans Times Picayune:
The paper made the call to publish the story in spite of an “unwritten rule” in journalism that it’s unfair to print bombshells as campaigns wind down, Baquet said. But he viewed the alternative — not printing the truth — as worse. And while he would rather have printed the Schwarzenegger story earlier, he said, the abbreviated nature of the recall campaign made it impossible.
The paper had only 58 days to vet Schwarzenegger’s past, he said, and despite assigning a team of six reporters to investigate allegations of the actor’s misconduct, it was a time-consuming task, Baquet said. The only reason the story ran in the last days of the campaign was because it wasn’t ready earlier.
See, this is what the loonies seeing bias under every rock can’t get into their heads: The process of putting the paper out is problematic enough without us adding another layer of complexity by sticking it to perceived enemies or propping up pet causes.
I usually tell these people: It’s not as bad as you think; it’s actually a lot worse. Because, see, exploiting the power of the press seems like a rational, even smart, thing to do, but most of the press’s abuses spring from ordinary stupidity, laziness, lack of news hole or lack of time to find a smarter way to get the story out. It never seems to get much traction; maybe an electorate that would put Arnie in the governorship isn’t really interested in being told stuff that departs from their Hollywood-screenplay notions of reality.