NYT Trading Access for Positive Coverage?

Ed Morrissey has an interesting story about the New York Times threatening poor coverage of the release of John McCain's health records if they were left out of the pool of reporters able to cover the story first.

Given the Times' open hostility to McCain on multiple occasions this year, it's an easy story to believe.

Ed has asked the NYT for a response but thus far is still waiting.

A side note, the records are due to be released "by May 23rd." Sounds like a Friday-of-a-holiday-weekend "document dump" coming to me.

More from the L.A. Times. Interesting that the same press so anxious for Senator McCain's records let President Clinton's refusal to release his records slide.

Sunday Update: The Times never responded to Ed, but complained in an article that the release was "tightly controlled" -- despite having a larger pool of reporters than a McCain medical document release the paper had praised in 1999!