There are some unhappy contenders for the Hillary Clinton beat the New York Times. Already the paper has a slew of arguably self-aggrandizing (and who at the Times isn’t?) key reporters on Hillary’s trail: Ray Hernandez (Metro desk), Adam Nagourney (chief national political correspondent), and Patrick (no middle initial) Healy (chief political correspondent at the Metro desk).
Now managing ed Jill Abramson is bringing in presidential campaign regular Anne Kornblut to cover Clinton’s 2006 Senate run (and beyond). Kornblut will report to deputy bureau chief Richard Stevenson and file from Washington. That’s Washington, as in the nation’s capital, where it’s nobody’s secret Clinton hopes to be in 2008. And that’s Washington, as in not New York, where the Times has HQ-ed its Hillary operations since she joined the Senate.
Kornblut’s addition to the already overcrowded mix is sure to rustle some newsprint. Her origins at the Boston Globe and transition to the Times in 2005 follows an eerily similar path that Patrick Healy took. Ray Hernandez, we hear, has been at the paper since the early 90s since leaving the Dayton Daily News. And Adam Nagourney – who is, in fact, not the person behind his “personal diary” – has been at the Grey Lady since 1996, after gigs with the New York Daily News and USA Today. Such heavyweights being tossed aside to make room for Kornblut? Sounds like an Excedrin tension headache that only an Alessandra Stanley correction could mollify.
Times Brushes Up On Hillary Races With New Beat Star [Gabriel Sherman, NYO]