To print or not - two publishers make the call

By BRUCE FRANKELUSA TODAY

    The publishers, heirs of two historic newspaper families, consulted the
attorney general and the FBI director. They met with their top editors and
lawyers.

    But in the end, the two men themselves decided to publish the Unabomber's
35,000-word essay.

    New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said 80 percent of his
discussions were with Washington Post publisher Donald Graham directly. The
Sulzberger and Graham families have long controlled the respective prestigious
newspapers.

    "We found an acceptable way of meeting the Unabomber's requirements that
had as small as possible effect on the newspaper as a whole," Sulzberger said.

    They agreed to publish only in the Post because the Times' old presses at
its main plant near Times Square could not insert an extra section into the
daily paper.

    The Times has a modern plant in New Jersey that prints most of its large
Sunday newspaper. But neither Sulzberger nor Graham wanted to give the bomber
the benefit of the extra 600,000 copies of the Times sold on Sundays.

    "We are not trying to slough off responsibility" to the Post, Sulzberger
says.

    Only a select group of Times editors and executives were consulted about
publishing the text. The group disagreed at first. But Sulzberger says there
was unanimity in the end.

    Meeting with the FBI was a small group from both papers: Sulzberger,
Graham, Times executive editor Joseph Lelyveld, Post executive editor Len
Downie and Washington Post Co. executive Bo Jones.

    Sulzberger sent a memo to the Times staff defending the decision. "There's
no great journalistic issue. I know I've made the right decision, I just don't
know the outcome," Sulzberger wrote.

    In the last paragraph of the Times news story Tuesday, Sulzberger spoke
directly to the bomber.

    "Whether or not we print further communications from the Unabomber will be
guided, in part, by the Unabomber's continued abstention from all bombings _
not just those targeting people."

    Sulzberger said he decided on those words to the Unabomber himself and was
not guided by the FBI.

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