Wood Coverage Presented Dilemma to 2 Publications

The New York Times and a Time magazine columnist found themselves in an ethical thicket Monday over the Times’ coverage of U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood’s derailed nomination to be attorney general.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a page-one story saying an anonymous source close to Wood contended that she had given the White House full details of her hiring of an illegal immigrant as her baby-sitter, an account that contradicted the White House version of events. On Monday, the newspaper ran another page-one story backtracking on the Sunday piece, saying Wood had issued a statement supporting the White House version of events--that she had not explicitly told officials that she had hired the baby-sitter until she was going through final background checks for the job.

Later Monday, insiders at the New York Times revealed to the Washington Post that the source for the first story was Wood’s husband, Michael Kramer, national political columnist for Time magazine.

The spectacle has Washington political and journalism circles buzzing over two ethical dilemmas. One involves the matter of a reporter who writes about the White House for Time magazine being the husband of a potential Cabinet member, and then in turn the source for news organizations covering the story of her nomination.

Another question involves New York Times employees revealing to other journalists the identity of a source who was supposed to be anonymous.

In an interview Monday, Kramer said that he was contacted by several news organizations over the weekend, and that he spoke to several on background. Kramer declined to comment on whether the New York Times was one of them.

But he emphatically denied ever telling the Times what it reported in its Sunday story.

“The New York Times story on Sunday was inaccurate to the facts as I know them,” Kramer said.

New York Times Washington Editor Andrew Rosenthal said “it is obvious that there was a misunderstanding between our source and our reporter.”

He added that reporters on the New York Times are held to an inviolate rule to not identify sources who agreed to be interviewed anonymously.

“We do not, never have, and never will comment on the identity of anonymous sources.”

Jim Gaines, Time’s managing editor, told the Washington Post Monday that Kramer “was caught in a conflict last week between being the husband of a nominee and a political columnist for this magazine.” But Gaines said he is “completely confident that (Kramer) can put aside any personal feelings he has and write objectively about the Clinton Administration.”

Kramer said Monday that Wood answered all questions truthfully at all times. She was asked twice by transition aide Bernard Nussbaum and once by Clinton himself whether she had a “Zoe Baird problem,” referring to the failed attorney general nominee who had hired illegal immigrants in violation of the law and also failed to pay proper social security taxes.

Wood answered on all three occasions that, no, she did not have a problem, that she had paid all taxes and that everything was legal.

Only last Thursday, when Wood was asked to respond to lengthy written questionnaires, did she get into the details that the person was an undocumented immigrant at the time of her hiring, but that at the time there was no law against doing so.

Kramer, 47, who was chief political reporter for U.S. News & World Report before joining Time in 1988, wrote Time’s “Man of the Year” story, which was about the President-elect.