Spitzer and 'Newsweek': A Case Study in Coziness

Has the relationship between Eliot Spitzer and The Washington Post Co. grown a bit too intimate for journalistic comfort?

The scandal-tarnished former governor is the subject of a generally friendly Newsweek cover story, "The Confessions of Eliot Spitzer." A month ago, the magazine published an essay of his about populism and the economy. On its own, those two data points might not suggest much. But Newsweek is part of the Post Co., and it is largely through the Post Co.'s media organs that Spitzer has been staging his career rehabilitation. As The New York Observer recently noted:

His regular column appears in Slate, owned by the Washington Post Company. Newsweek? Also owned by the Washington Post Company. And by appearing on CNN with Fareed Zakaria, he got to speak to a Newsweek international editor.

When he made his biggest splash in public life after he resigned in disgrace in March 2008, it was in the editorial pages of (where else?) The Washington Post. It was that column that prompted Slate Group editor Jacob Weisberg to get Mr. Spitzer under contract. That, along with the fact that former Slate publisher Cliff Sloan, one of Mr. Spitzer's closest friends going back to their days at Harvard Law together, wanted Mr. Spitzer to return to public life as a writer, and doing it for Slate.

The Newsweek cover story contains the necessary disclosures. But is it enough? You have to wonder if the magazine is capable of being sufficiently objective about someone with whom it and its sister publications have such a cozy relationship. The New York Post, for one, concludes that it isn't, calling the article a "big, puffy cover story" in its weekly magazine review:

Wisely eschewing other mags that might have pressed him about being -- well, the most shameless hypocrite in recent American politics, Spitzer is permitted to hold forth on Wall Street bonuses, what a revelation it is to spend time with his family, and which dogs he's walking and why. "There are other nations that have a very different set of parameters on these things," says a still-shameless Spitzer, asked by the half-asleep mag whether he thinks Americans ought to care about politicians' sex lives.

Of course, it's impossible to say how the profile would have come out in the absence of any conflicts of interest. But it did seem a tad over-charitable of the writer, Jonathan Darman, to assert, without attributing the opinion to anyone else, that Spitzer would be a viable candidate for mayor of New York City in 2013. Let's say that comes to pass: What does that disclosure look like? "Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer [whose career prospects Newsweek and its sister properties were instrumental in reviving], was sworn in at City Hall today..."

Update: Michael Wolff's thoughts on this are worth reading: "In effect, Newsweek, by reporting on Spitzer's rehabilitation, is rehabilitating its own asset."