The New Face of the Times

The redesigned version of the paper debuted yesterday. National, local and business news, plus the conservative opinion pages, are all wrapped into the A section, allowing for a new "Plugged In" section with a rotating focus (economics on Monday, politics on Tuesday, "living" on Wednesday and so on). The Sunday edition -- which sells an average of just 38,000 copies -- will be encased in a 32-page tabloid-size magazine. The Saturday print edition is being dropped.

Solomon, an investigative reporter who spent nearly two decades with the Associated Press, has long disputed accusations by liberal bloggers that he was tougher on the Democrats. Despite his lofty title, he still works the phones.

"He has a lot of sources within the campaigns," says Christina Bellantoni, the paper's lead reporter on the Democrats, whose work is praised by both the Clinton and Obama teams. "My former editors weren't very plugged into the Democratic campaigns." Sometimes Solomon prods campaign aides to return his staff's calls.

In the past, the Times frequently appeared openly partisan. In the early 1990s, when Wesley Pruden was editor, two reporters quit, saying their bosses had distorted their stories.

During the 1992 campaign, front-page headlines about the first President Bush were overwhelmingly positive: "Confident Bush bares his knuckles"; "Bush pounds Clinton on flip-flops"; "Bush hits Clinton's 'deception pattern' ." The front-page headlines about Bill Clinton were overwhelmingly negative: "Clinton dodges doubts on tour"; "Clinton hurdle: Honesty"; "Clinton toured Moscow at war's peak."

In recent weeks, by contrast, the Times has run such Page 1 headlines about Hillary Clinton as "Clinton sheds tough image" and "Clinton's faith underestimated." (Positive front-page headlines about Obama have been less frequent.)

At the same time, the paper reported last month about Clinton that "federal prosecutors quietly assembled hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting she concealed information and misled a federal grand jury about her work for a failing Arkansas savings and loan at the heart of the Whitewater probe." The story was based on papers donated to the Library of Congress by the late Sam Dash, an adviser to independent counsel Ken Starr. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson was quoted as saying the story involved "a baseless accusation which was looked into over a decade ago."

The Times scored an exclusive in March when it reported that the State Department had fired two contractors for snooping into Obama's passport file. Sometimes, though, the paper sees greater value in news that other outlets treat as minor items. After Obama apologized last month for calling a Detroit television reporter "sweetie," the paper ran a front-page piece headlined "Sweetie leaves bad taste for Obama critics."

No story infuriated the Obama camp more than one that was published three days after Solomon took the helm. The piece said that Obama had changed his position on a number of issues since his 2004 Senate campaign, based on videotapes that the Times posted online. A leading example was Obama saying at a debate four years ago that he wanted to decriminalize marijuana but did not believe in legalization. The Obama camp says what the senator meant four years ago was that society should improve methods of dealing with first-time drug offenders; Solomon says an aide offered conflicting statements on the issue and that he published both, including a spokesman's assurance that the Illinois senator does not support removing criminal penalties for pot possession.

Solomon says he started working on the story while he was still at The Post, which declined to publish it amid questions about sourcing.

Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie says he never made a final decision but has qualms about running negative information against a candidate "dredged up in opposition research. . . . It was important to me -- this was one campaign attacking another, and the reader needed to know that."

After Times reporters helped corroborate the story and obtain more videos, the paper noted that it had obtained the tapes from a variety of sources, including "political operatives opposed to Mr. Obama's presidential campaign."

Asked if the paper had served as a conduit for a rival operative whose identity he is shielding, Solomon says: "How are we protecting anyone? It was a videotape of a public debate. I don't think getting a tip from one campaign or operative negates the fact that it's newsworthy."

The McCain campaign has also taken its knocks from the Times. In April, the paper reported that two of the Republican's top advisers, Charlie Black and Tom Loeffler, had been paid more than $15 million to lobby for foreign governments since 2005. Last week, the paper's lead story said McCain was using a loophole in the campaign-finance law he championed to allow donors to funnel as much as $70,000 each to his campaign -- a practice his spokesman described as routine.

As he tries to change the paper's mission, Solomon sees its modest size as an advantage. "Good ideas can be executed without 900 committee meetings," he says.

On one point, there is no debate: Solomon has boosted morale in the newsroom. "He's got a lot of people here very excited and enthused," says political writer Don Lambro.