The Story Behind the Putin Op-Ed Article in The Times

A Times reader, Lawrence DeVine, has a few questions about The Times’s publication of an Op-Ed article in Thursday’s paper by Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia. He asks: “Did he call up the editorial page editor and say, hey, how would you like 800 words on you, us and Syria, I’ll have it in by Wednesday night deadline, no sweat, I’ll take your usual freelance rates?”

It didn’t happen just that way, the editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal told me Thursday morning, but it also wasn’t too much more complicated than that.

The Times editorial department was approached Wednesday by an American public relations firm that represents Mr. Putin, offering the piece.  Also on Wednesday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, in the course of an interview about Syria, mentioned to The Times’s Moscow bureau chief Steven Lee Myers that an article was in the works.

Mr. Rosenthal agreed to review the article and quickly decided to publish it. It was posted on the Times Web site by Wednesday evening.

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/the-story-behind-the-putin-op-ed-article-in-the-times/?smid=tw-share