Newsweek/The Daily Beast has hired Eli Lake away from The Washington Times. Politico reports that Lake will cover “intelligence, military and cybersecurity” as the new National Security Reporter.

At Newsweek/The Daily Beast, Lake will be reunited with John Solomon, who previously worked at the newspaper, and recently was brought to Newsweek/The Daily Beast as a News Editor.

A story on the front page of The New York Times today about opposition to President Obama’s health care proposals linked one “stubborn yet false” rumor about the alleged “death panels” back to The Washington Times:

“The specter of government-sponsored, forced euthanasia was raised as early as Nov. 23, just weeks after the election and long before any legislation had been drafted, by an outlet decidedly opposed to Mr. Obama, The Washington Times.”

But TWT Executive Editor John Solomon is fighting back against the accusation that his publication is “decidedly opposed” to the president and his administration. In a memo obtained by our sister blog FishbowlDC, Solomon said his paper’s objectivity should not be called in to question simply because of the “voice of its editorial pages.”

“Our news pages have no agenda except to accurately and fairly cover the news, including that made by the administration,” Solomon said.

Solomon said his newsroom was “doing factual and fair reporting” and challenged the New York Times to prove that the Washington Times was not producing “a fair, balanced, accurate and compelling news report every day.” He also requested an apology from the New York paper.

Read the whole memo here.

Update: Later on Friday, the Solomon sent out a second memo claiming the New York Times “formally called to apologize and will be running a correction in tomorrow’s paper.”

“The Times‘ Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet, wanted me to personally pass along his apology,” Solomon told his staff. “He also shared these words with David Jones: ‘I would never say your paper has been anything but absolutely fair and objective to Obama.’ We agree and accept the Times‘ apology.”