Rebello, Heidi From: Sent: To: Subject: Jefferson, Erica Friday, April 25, 2014 11:06 AM 'Tavernise, Sabrina' RE: The story Follow Up Flag: Flag Status: Follow up Flagged Yesterday was crazy so I didn’t get a chance to respond. I figured you were working on follow ups anyway. I would say we’ve certainly worked with other Times reporters who didn’t feel the need to have it captured in quite this manner. Gardiner and Barry have definitely had stuff handed to them and we never got anything like this in their stories. I’m just saying. Either way, I have you tell you it was annoying to a lot of folks around here. It just seemed kind of petty and unnecessary – especially when others found craftier less offensive ways around it. If this sort of thing is a problem for editors, we’ll have to rethink how we engage. I would remind them that we deal with sensitive, market moving policy stuff and occasionally we have to ask these sorts of concessions to allow early access. I mean do they call out NSA and others if someone just reads from a confidential document but doesn’t turn it over? Like I said, if it won’t work for them, we’ll figure out something/someone else. Everyone else worked the stuff out fine overnight, so I can’t really accept that argument, sorry… Re the other guy, Mitch called him to call him out, certainly not to give him a heads up on anything. He’d never even heard of the guy. Anyway, next week is a new week. From: Tavernise, Sabrina [mailto:sabrinat@nytimes.com] Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 7:25 AM To: Jefferson, Erica Subject: Re: The story Hi Erica. Geez sorry about the embargo thing. Editors were asking why we didn't get to see it so I was asked to put a line in to explain. It was a fairly frantic race to distill some ferociously complicated stuff into plain English in a way that was not full of errors that I'd have to go back and correct. On the Peggy quote, she was in there but was cut at the end because it was her saying this is a big deal but the tone of the piece already implied that. Again -- if we had had an overnight (and not had to put it in the paper on same day) some of these things could have been done better but it was a one stop shop and there was a ton to pack in. I so appreciate Jenny's helping me last night. On the weekend -- I pushed back very hard against editors really pressing me to run with something after I had talked to the industry guy on Saturday. He claimed Mitch had called him and that he had most recent document. On Thursday, April 24, 2014, Jefferson, Erica wrote: 1 2014-3702-OEA-006051 Hey Sabrina, I have to say while I generally reserve my editorial comments, I was a little surprised by the tone of your article and the swipe you took at the embargo in the paper -- when after combing through the coverage no one else felt the need to do so in quite that way. We fully realize it wasn't ideal, but it's the deal we had to cut on this one to give you all early access (that you and others have been pressing us on for MONTHS) and snipes like this don't help our cause internally. I took a lot of crap internally to pull that briefing together in the first place, but we got folks to recognize the value/importance and literally could not have it green-lit until the 25th hour. I also let go the recording device remark though typically I would have followed in-kind with an equally snarky remark -but realized it wasn't the place. Was also surprised to see Peggy wasn't quoted at all. To be clear, this is me taking stuff personally when I know I shouldn't, but I thought we had a better working relationship than this. Especially when we do all the back and forths, I answer stuff from you (and others) on weekends and after hours, get you access to people as frequently as I can and last night told someone with a small child who works for me to call -- not email because of the urgency -- another person with young children well after hours, to run down an additional detail for you. I never expect totally positive coverage as our policies are controversial and complex, but at least more neutral and slightly less editorialized. Simply put, bummer. Off to deal with a pissed Fox News reporter. Erica -Sabrina Tavernise The New York Times Health Reporter sabrinat@nytimes.com C: +202-630-4885 2 2014-3702-OEA-006052