A number of readers have sent me the letter the NYTimes has been sending people who write in about the report that the paper has been digging into the John Roberts’s family adoption records (see here and here).
Dear Reader,
Thanks for writing to us.
While the public editor does not usually get involved in pre-publication
matters, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the paper, told us that he
would not stand for any gratuitous reporting about the Roberts’s children.
He said that as an adoptive parent he is particularly sensitive about this
issue.
In addition, a senior editor at the paper wrote, “In the case of Judge
Roberts’s family, our reporters made initial inquiries about the adoptions,
as they did about many other aspects of his background. They did so with
great care, understanding the sensitivity of the issue. We did not order up
an investigation of the adoptions. We have not pursued the issue after the
initial inquiries, which detected nothing irregular about the adoptions.”
Sincerely,
Joe Plambeck
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times
The Times doesn’t, however, explain to me how his children are relevant at all.