The Public Editor\'s Sunday Column: Who Sets the Terms for Interviews?

Who Sets the Terms for Interviews?

TAKING a summertime break from the weighty issues of leaks, false balance and anonymous sources - to which I'm sure to return - I am again hanging out the public editor's shingle. I will do my best here to answer what I call Perfectly Reasonable Questions from those who read The Times closely and with a critical eye.

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Ira Stoll of Newton, Mass., a journalist who is a frequent Times critic, was one of many who wrote concerning an article in the Home section about a Brooklyn house owned by the musician Mike D of the Beastie Boys. The article included this sentence: “Mr. Diamond, who prefers not to give his age, now has two boys of his own, Davis, 10, and Skyler, 8, with his wife Tamra Davis, a filmmaker, who also prefers not to give her age.” Mr. Stoll noted: “Plenty of other people The Times writes about would prefer not to give their ages, but The Times either figures them out using public records and puts them in anyway, or just leaves them out rather than making a big fuss about it.” He wondered if this was a deal cut in exchange for being allowed in the house.

The Home editor, Noel Millea, told me that there was no deal cut in advance and that she would never agree to one. She said she tries to give ages when possible “but not to force the issue since these are feature stories about people's homes and their private lives, not investigative pieces, and I'm reluctant to embarrass someone whose only offense is having a well-designed home.” In this case, she said, telling readers that Mr. Diamond wasn't willing to give his age “was actually far more revealing of his character than the age itself would have been.”

The associate managing editor for standards, Philip B. Corbett, said that in the case of a celebrity, where the age was readily available from other sources even if the subject himself was reticent, “I would have preferred to include it.” Wikipedia lists Mike D as 47, as anyone who recalls “Licensed to Ill,” which topped the charts in 1987, might have estimated. Mr. Stoll, the reader, was quick to volunteer his own age: He's 40.

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Steven Schechter of Brooklyn complained about an article on Ryan Braun, who plays for the Milwaukee Brewers. “I was dismayed to see that the reporter, Tyler Kepner, discloses that he agreed to an interview that would only address baseball issues. Given that much of the article focuses on Braun's alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, and a prior disputed test, it would have been enlightening to see questions directed at Braun. Is it typical or appropriate to agree to interviews where the interviewee sets conditions? That may be the norm with celebrities, but seems out of place in a news article, even one in the Sports section.”

Here is the response from Jason Stallman, the sports editor: “The interviewee sets the conditions in every interview because he or she is always at liberty to decline to answer any question we have. We can't force anyone to talk to us. All we can do is ask. In this case, Mr. Braun's handlers told us ahead of time that questions about doping were off-limits.”

The Times could have walked away from such conditions, on the grounds that they were too restrictive or self-serving, but chose not to. “We decided that the interview was still worthwhile because Tyler was not planning to write entirely about doping accusations,” Mr. Stallman said. “We wanted to get Mr. Braun's voice on other topics. Basically, Mr. Braun was choosing not to defend himself against anything we were noting in our story regarding his ties to the South Florida anti-aging clinic. That was his prerogative.” Mr. Stallman noted that the piece was open with readers about that arrangement.

There are occasions when the conditions are not acceptable, and The Times rightly declines. For example, the executive editor, Jill Abramson, made it clear recently that The Times was not interested in attending an off-the-record session with Attorney General Eric Holder about the government's leak investigations, and The Times no longer agrees to interviews that require after-the-fact quote approval from sources. The arrangement with Mr. Braun might have been acceptable, but this is clearly something that requires careful judgment each time, including with sports figures. (Consider if Aaron Hernandez were allowed to put limits on an interv iew now.)

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Tom Mehnert of Somers, N.Y., wrote to ask about the practices for Times restaurant reviews: “I had always assumed that the reviewer went in unannounced, quietly had several meals over a few nights and then did a review.” But recently, he said, he wondered about the review of a restaurant in Westchester after hearing discussion in the community that the staff might have known of the reviewer's plan to come. “Is the process to give the restaurant advance notice, thus giving them the opportunity to ‘show their best,' or was this an aberration?”

Amy Virshup, who edits the Metropolitan section in which the review appeared, responded: “Just as with the reviews in the Dining section, our reviewers take pains not to identify themselves when they are reviewing.” A writer might call a chef or a restaurant for a feature article - “but never for a review.” Restaurants do get called to set up the photo shoot for the reviews, she said, but that doesn't happen until after the reviewer has visited and formed his or her opinion.

I also asked the restaurant critic Pete Wells about his practices. He responded: “In a perfect world, restaurant critics would never be recognized and we'd get the same treatment as any other customer. In this world, that's not always the case, but by reserving under another name we can at least keep the element of surprise on our side.”

Mr. Wells told me that this practice becomes habit after a while. “I'm never going to review my corner pizzeria, but I've given them a fake name when I've ordered a pie for my kids.”

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Follow the public editor on Twitter at twitter.com/sulliview and read her blog at publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com.  The public editor can also be reached by e-mail: public@nytimes.com. A post last week took up the question of who should be called a journalist, within the context of government prosecution of leakers.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on June 30, 2013, on page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Who Sets the Terms for Interviews?.