Casey Seiler, editor in chief of The Albany Instances Union, was in a gathering on Tuesday afternoon with the newspaper’s government committee of their workplace close to the airport when he noticed a remark he made privately months earlier was now circulating on Twitter.
“Ugh, no, no! Not off the document,” Mr. Seiler was quoted as saying. “No, don’t ship us something until it’s on the document, Melissa, okay?” referring to Melissa DeRosa, a prime aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Mr. Seiler, principally bald and boyish-looking, like a nerdy Patrick Stewart, declined to specify how usually he says “ugh” in skilled settings. However the spirit of the change — made public as a part of a bombshell report launched on Tuesday by the state legal professional basic — was consultant of what life has been like at Mr. Cuomo’s hometown paper whereas the governor fights for his political life.
Mr. Seiler had been protesting Ms. DeRosa’s provide in March to ship the newspaper a doc a few girl who accused Mr. Cuomo of harassment. Placing data off the document — particulars that may’t be straight shared with readers, however may very well be supposed to affect protection — was one thing the Instances Union discouraged. Finally, no doc was despatched. (“It wasn’t a personnel file. It wasn’t something derogatory,” Richard Azzopardi, director of communications and senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, later stated. The doc would have “added just a little little bit of context” to the dialog, he stated.)
That report from the state legal professional basic concluded that Mr. Cuomo harassed 11 girls and oversaw a poisonous work setting.
Many particulars are on the document now, together with the lengths to which Mr. Cuomo’s staff went to handle his picture throughout this disaster. For The Instances Union particularly, that has included the staff supplying doubtlessly damaging details about an accuser; regularly insisting on going off the document when contacted by a reporter; offering inaccurate data; and screaming at reporters and editors in phone calls.
The pandemic curler coaster that Mr. Cuomo has been on additionally took the paper for a trip. Mr. Cuomo’s reputation soared throughout his usually televised coronavirus briefings (sobering information, inspirational quotes, zingers from his brother, the CNN host Chris Cuomo), which stood in distinction to President Trump’s (harmful data, false reassurances and assaults on reporters). But whereas different journalists on the paper have been often referred to as on to ask Mr. Cuomo questions, the top of the paper’s Capitol protection by no means was.
Now, within the aftermath of the legal professional basic’s report, Mr. Cuomo’s techniques and his targets are in full view. On Tuesday, seeing the phrases he uttered privately circulating on-line, Mr. Seiler picked up his laptop computer and walked out of the assembly. Then, he referred to as Brendan J. Lyons, who oversees the Instances Union’s protection of the Capitol and who was on that telephone name with Ms. DeRosa in March.
Mr. Lyons already knew one thing was occurring. He was working from house when he noticed somebody on Twitter name him and Mr. Seiler heroic. His first response: “Uh oh.”
Neither man had recognized that the 38-minute telephone name in March had been recorded, presumably by Mr. Cuomo’s aides, not to mention that the recording was obtained by investigators, transcribed and featured within the legal professional basic’s report.
In early March, days earlier than the telephone name, Mr. Lyons had printed an interview with an unnamed aide to the governor who stated he had groped her. Now, months later, Mr. Lyons raced to recall whether or not that secretly recorded telephone name laid naked by the legal professional basic’s report would possibly embrace details about the aide that was by no means supposed to be public.
“This can be a story about sexual harassment,” Mr. Lyons stated in an interview. “Is there one thing in there that’s damaging to a sufferer, or exposes a sufferer?”
For the 165-year-old newspaper rooted in a county with fewer residents than Staten Island, the Cuomo scandal is a uncommon second of wider consideration. For years, as on-line platforms and social media devoured up promoting {dollars} and audiences, information organizations protecting state capitols, together with Albany, have shrunk. The Instances Union has devoted extra sources than most different shops to protecting Mr. Cuomo and his administration: Along with Mr. Lyons, two different reporters and a youthful, reporting fellow, are assigned to the Capitol, not together with beat reporters who veer into protection, too.
The Instances Union, which is owned by Hearst, has caught to its old style ideas. No going off the document until completely vital. Minimal schmoozing with sources. Don’t let your inbox dictate the way you’re going to spend your day.
That strategy is especially ill-suited for a Cuomo administration. Mr. Cuomo, a three-term Democratic governor, is the son of a three-term Democratic governor. Each developed reputations for obsessing over their media protection, calling reporters and editors seemingly with out reservation, and shunning these whose protection they didn’t like, in line with journalists and former aides.
Mr. Seiler described Mr. Cuomo because the Shakespearean determine whose “biggest expertise or attributes are so inexplicably sure up with their flaws and their sins.” He added: “What makes him such a formidable employee of the equipment of politics additionally makes him a management freak who has a horror of investigations that he doesn’t management.”
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When Mr. Cuomo was legal professional basic, Mr. Lyons wrote an unflattering article about him. After it appeared, Mr. Cuomo referred to as Mr. Lyons. “I made the error,” he stated, of permitting Mr. Cuomo to go off the document within the name. “Then he proceeded to scream at me and actually say some issues that have been out of line.”
After some time, Mr. Lyons recalled, he stated, “I’ve had sufficient — I’m not listening to you anymore” and recommended Mr. Cuomo name his supervisor, which Mr. Cuomo promptly did earlier than Mr. Lyons might give the supervisor a heads up. “And he began screaming and threatening him as nicely,” Mr. Lyons stated. The lesson, he stated: “I’ll by no means let this man go off the document with me once more.”
Mr. Azzopardi, who has been with the administration for 9 years, stated, “I can’t let you know what the governor did or didn’t do” when he was legal professional basic.
On going off the document, Mr. Azzopardi stated, “Generally you want to have the ability to clarify context with out watching each phrase you say rigorously.” He added: “It’s not any completely different right here than in every other political group.”
The report by the New York State legal professional basic Letitia James has fueled requires Mr. Cuomo to resign instantly. And the flames engulfing Mr. Cuomo’s political home are additionally casting a brand new gentle on the newspaper in his yard.
“I’m no fan of the paper,” Fredric U. Dicker, the previous state editor of The New York Put up and as soon as thought-about a pleasant media ally of the governor, stated in an interview. “However to the Instances Union’s credit score, they’ve had some very robust tales attempting to look into the administration.”
In 2019, Mr. Cuomo and his longtime girlfriend broke up. He moved out of the Westchester house they shared and into the governor’s mansion, turning into a full-time Albany resident for the primary time since his father was governor.
It was a house the Queens-born governor by no means needed, in line with Mr. Dicker, who had been engaged on a ebook about Mr. Cuomo earlier than that they had a falling out in 2013.
“He considered Albany — I do know, he advised me — small city, small time,” Mr. Dicker stated. “And I believe he discovered Albany even worse than he had remembered it.”
Mr. Cuomo was unhappily replanted in Albany, and the scrutiny of the Instances Union, a sturdy day by day newspaper devoted to his metropolis and trade, was unlikely to enhance his temper. “We needed to form of leap by means of hoops to get any entry to him, regardless that we have been in his yard.” Jessica Marshall, a multimedia producer for the Instances Union, stated. “He was at all times inaccessible. Previous to the pandemic, throughout the pandemic, the scandal, all the things.”
The paper, technically situated within the neighboring city of Colonie, is the paper for Albany, a metropolis of 96,000 individuals, many with work tied to the federal government. In that fishbowl, the plastic fortress of the governor’s mansion may very well be confining.
And now, as Mr. Cuomo seems to be operating out of room to swim, The Instances Union is being celebrated.
Mr. Seiler’s rebuke of Ms. DeRosa’s provide must be taught in journalism colleges, one reporter at The New Republic stated the day the report was launched. The editor in chief of WNYC public radio stated, “Each reporter and editor ought to decide to reminiscence these well-known phrases” uttered by Mr. Seiler.
The New Yorker interviewed Mr. Seiler for a narrative with the headline, “How Andrew Cuomo Holds on to Energy.” And Mr. Lyons appeared on MSNBC (The Room Rater account on Twitter: “Love the colours. Artwork. Mild. Window on proper. Crop left. 9/10.”)
Mr. Lyons took over Capitol protection for the paper in 2017, after overseeing investigative tasks. His probing questions led to main scoops, in addition to a cold reception from the governor.
“I gave up elevating my hand within the Zoom calls, asking to be referred to as on,” Mr. Lyons stated, discussing Mr. Cuomo’s pandemic information conferences and the smattering of availabilities the governor held because the preliminary allegations towards him have been made public beginning in February. “I’ve by no means been referred to as on a single time.”
Mr. Azzopardi stated The Instances Union pushed to have in-person information conferences after which “they didn’t trouble to point out up.” So, he stated, “on that time, I’m not that sympathetic.” Mr. Seiler stated a mix of security considerations and information worth led the paper to cowl these occasions remotely.
On the time he was being ignored, Mr. Lyons naturally needed a proof. “I stated to certainly one of my reporters, in the event you get referred to as on, to ask him who’s the particular person choosing who will get to ask the questions?” Mr. Lyons recalled.
Mr. Cuomo, he stated, “claimed to not know.”
