MAPLEWOOD MAN AT CENTER OF NEW YORK NEWSPAPER INTRIGUE

The New York Times reports:

Bill Gifford was managing an ice cream shop in Maplewood, N.J., last summer when a customer, Ken Kurson, the editor of The New York Observer, came in with an unorthodox request. He wanted Mr. Gifford, a 28-year-old political science major who was seeking a new job but had almost no journalistic experience, to write an article about the New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman. 

Mr. Kurson described Mr. Schneiderman as a “bad guy” and a “phony,” and hired Mr. Gifford for the writing assignment, Mr. Gifford said. But after several weeks, and after being sent negative articles about Mr. Schneiderman, Mr. Gifford said on Wednesday, he became convinced that the article “was supposed to be basically a smear piece” and he quit the job. 

The Observer was not deterred. It hired another freelance reporter to keep working on the piece, and on Tuesday it published the finished product — a searing, 7,000-word indictment of Mr. Schneiderman, portraying him as vindictive and politically opportunistic. 

The article also included a robust defense of Donald J. Trump, whose education business was being sued by Mr. Schneiderman’s office, seeking $40 million in restitution. More materially to the critics, Mr. Trump is the father-in-law of The Observer’s owner, Jared Kushner, and an acquaintance of Mr. Kurson.

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