The fun never stops on the New York Times,beat* especially this week when our stockings are stuffed with two big features from the machers: "Backstory" author Ken Auletta in the New Yorker and "Hard News" author Seth Mnookin in Vanity Fair, which actually came out a week or so ago but is now available online.

You'd think that between the New York Observer, Arianna Huffington, Jay Rosen, the MSM feeding frenzy, blogs and everyone in between that it all would have been said, but both Auletta and Mnookin uncover new nuggets that shed light on the story (and definitely hint toward more drama to come). Some examples:

Mnookin: In addition to Miller's refusal to talk to the NYT investigative team, apparently Sulzberger also tried to stymie the team writing on the Miller case. Specifically, Sulzberger kept the team away from former president and CEO of the Times Company Russ Lewis "Because I don't know what the fuck he's going to tell you." Yay for transparency!

Auletta: When Miller was sprung from the pen, the NYT brass welcomed her with steak and a massage, but they knew her career there was finished: "Miller assumed that after a decent interval she would return to the newspaper. She did not know that Sulzberger, Keller, Jill Abramson, and Janet Robinson had held a series of discussions while she was in jail and, according to two of the principals, decided that her career at the Times was over."

Auletta: Sulz didn't know that MoDo's infamous "Woman of Mass Destruction" column was going to run.

Mnookin: Jill Abramson edited some of Judy's stories (Ed. and did know that MoDo's column was going to run).

Auletta: Just in case you were confused, Judy Miller's faulty WMD reporting was not her fault. It was her sources.

Mnookin: ...but maybe the alumninum tubes story really wasn't her fault: she shared her byline on that story with Michael Gordon, and apparently the alumninum tube intel was all his (unlike Judy, he got to write follow-up stories, btw. Hmph).

Mnookin: Cites an NYT business guy on Sulzberger's sub-par judgment: "Arthur's very well intentioned. But there's something approaching panic about the way he deals with things. There have been a lot of very messy problems in not a lot of years. We could all see this was not the right fight to pick. But he was so determined to push ahead."

Auletta: Sums it up with a damning quote from Gay Talese, author of Times history "The Kingdom and the Power" on Sulzberger: "You get a bad king every once in awhile." Auletta also cites Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones' Times tome "The Trust." No mention, however, of the most recent NYT book... I'm just sayin'.

Also, big get for Auletta! A quote from Howell Raines, blaming Judy's editors (and the NYT for failing to disclose who they were): "I did not know Judy's sources. At the time, I followed the customary Times practice of relying on the supervising desk editor -- in this case, most often the Washington editor and the foreign editor -- to make sure the sourcing on the stories they handled was correct." Note that Howell Raines did not respond to Mnookin's request for comment in "Hard News" (and indeed, refused his outstretched hand the one time they met in public). Note also that although Miller spoke to Auletta she declined to speak to Mnookin for his VF article or for "Hard News."

Now that both Mnookin and Auletta have tapped their sources on this, what's next for the saga of the NYT? Well, the Observer comes out on Wednesday...

The Inheritance [The New Yorker]
Unreliable Sources [Vanity Fair]

Cheatsheets:
Auletta:A tough look at Sulzberger, NYT and the Miller Affair [E&P]
Mnookin: Vanity Fair Piece on Miller [FishbowlDC]

Interesting HuffPo Commentary:
A Great Story [Nora Ephron]

Journalists love going to war, and the Sulzberger-Miller-
Keller-Raines-era NYT was no exception.
What's Black & Blue & Read All Over? [Marty Kaplan]

"However much the right wants to delegitimize the Times, they still covet its mainstream credibility."

*No, really, please - make it stop!