N.Y. Times Editors Defend Use of Name : Media: News executives, staff members clash at meeting. At issue is printing this week of identity of alleged Palm Beach rape case victim.

At an impassioned meeting with 400 staff members Friday, top New York Times editors defended the paper’s profile of the alleged Palm Beach rape victim but conceded they probably should have omitted some details of the woman’s past.

“Our sensitivity has been heightened by the reaction we’ve had, primarily from our own colleagues, and yes, we should have edited more protectively,” Assistant Managing Editor Allan M. Siegal said in an interview later. “I would have added caveats and disclaimers, that this doesn’t show whether she was raped, and if she was, it doesn’t suggest she wanted to be. We’re now seeing where certain phraseology has inflamed people’s feelings.”

But many of those who packed the newspaper’s ninth-floor auditorium, who came from all departments of the paper, were not satisfied with the explanations of Siegal, Executive Editor Max Frankel and National Editor Soma Golden. “I’m still mad,” one woman declared. “They didn’t get it. They don’t understand they set it up to look like the slut asked for it. We came here because we didn’t want to work for people who would run stories like that.”

On Wednesday, a day after NBC News identified the woman who says she was raped by William Kennedy Smith, the New York Times also published her name in an unflattering profile that prompted more than 100 staff members to sign a letter of protest.

The story described what one acquaintance called the woman’s “little wild streak,” with details ranging from her speeding tickets to her out-of-wedlock daughter to the books on the 2-year-old’s bookshelf, glimpsed through the blinds.

One woman staffer said that “we don’t understand why you’ve got New York Times reporters peeping in windows.” Another said the paper had “crucified” the woman.

When one questioner asked if the newspaper was engaging in “tabloid journalism,” citing a front-page story earlier this month on Kitty Kelley’s biography of Nancy Reagan, Frankel said the Kelley piece had been a “mistake.” According to participants, Frankel said the story “did not live up to our standards.”

The story by Maureen Dowd detailed many of the book’s salacious allegations, but made little attempt to assess their veracity or explore the author’s controversial background.

Frankel “certainly expressed less than satisfaction with the balance and rounding of the story we had,” Siegal said. “The fact is, we did that story in a hurry.”

Siegal said the story should have been “devoted in greater part to evaluating (Kelley’s) sourcing and bona fides and less devoted to the allegations in the book.”

Frankel did not respond to a request for comment late Friday.

The profile of the alleged rape victim left the New York Times in the unusual position of having to defend its standards while the city’s three tabloids have withheld the woman’s name and criticized the Times for publishing it. The Times said calls poured in all day Wednesday and another 100 complaints were received Thursday.

The large auditorium at the Times’s West 43rd Street headquarters was filled to capacity, with people crowding the aisles as editors fielded questions.

Participants provided the following account:

National Editor Golden called the controversy “the most troubling time of my career,” but said the piece was simply a profile of “a woman in the news.” The story would have been far worse, she said, had editors not deleted 30% of the original draft, which included “more raucous” details about the woman’s life.

Many in the crowd laughed and hissed when Golden said that some readers brought their own baggage to the story and that it could not be helped if they had “weird minds.”

“The people with the weird minds are the ones who thought that was journalism,” one reporter snapped. When several people said they found the piece offensive and did not consider themselves weird, Golden said she had been misunderstood.

Frankel told the crowd the Times would not have published the Florida woman’s name had NBC not disclosed it first, but that he “did not want to defend a symbolic gesture of privacy.” He said the criticism was “painful” but that it would not be fair to continue to shield “the accuser” when so much has been written about Smith, a nephew of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Following the New York Times disclosure, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Des Moines Register and Reuters news agency also identified the woman by name. But the great majority of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, are not publishing her identity.

When the New York Times editors said they had assigned a profile of Smith, several staffers questioned whether it would delve into his sexual history and parents’ background. That question appeared unresolved. The Wednesday story described an affair between the alleged victim’s mother and a wealthy industrialist she later married.

Frankel appeared angry when one questioner asked whether there were racial overtones to the paper’s decision after it had refused to identify the Central Park jogger, a white investment banker raped and beaten by a gang of black and Latino youths. He said the jogger still had the option of resuming a private life in another city where she was not known, while NBC had broadcast the Florida woman’s name nationwide.

Some staffers asked why the profile had been assigned to Boston bureau chief Fox Butterfield and questioned whether he was close to the Kennedy family. Editors said Butterfield was chosen solely because he has covered the Kennedys, had the right contacts and was available. New York Times sources said later that Butterfield has never socialized with the family. Butterfield declined to comment.