If anyone believes whatever explanation they gin up for themselves (assuming they even bother), I've got a bridge to sell ya.

Contemporary Journalists Have to Multitask.

But the problem here is bigger than this excerpt. Reading through the complete "story", this is a very poorly written article. For one, the fact that The Intercept is the apparent source isn't stated until deep into the article in the 15th paragraph. It should have been the first paragraph. That's one of the first things you learn in journalism school.

But the full story in the Intercept also leaves out a very important fact. As a New York Times story reported in the following paragraph:

and I found her critical question (s) to be of profound importance.

What did the N.Y. Times know and when?

I keep thinking if the National Enquirer playing "catch and kill."

And if she knew Thomas was fired, that just might have answered the question about what the Times knew and when. I'm sorry but this is a lousy story.

Washington Post, and the quote from Sullivan by it's language seem contemporary to me or at least after the fact whereas Thomas the author/non-author was fired months before Epstein was arrested and died in prison.

(snip)

“It would be useful for readers who have become aware of this to know more from the Times about who knew what, when,” said Margaret Sullivan, a media critic and a former public editor at The New York Times. “I think it’s really important for reporters to have their main constituency in mind, and that is the public.”

(snip)

Later in the thread, Landon asked Epstein if he too had been questioned about his relationship to the GOP presidential hopeful.

“are you still getting calls from reporters re Trump?” Thomas asked.

“everyone except the NYT it seems ” Epstein replied.

(snip)

https://theintercept.com/2025/11/14/epstein-new-york-times-trump/

I'm not a professional journalist so I can't argue on those merits so much as connecting dots.

She was a media critic and former editor. She would know that is vital information. There’s no clue in her quotes that she knew. She would have said so. She wouldn’t have kept something that important quiet.

not his emails or communications with Epstein.

That's why you see summaries of past developments at the bottom of stories. Granted, they sometimes get cut for lack of space, but it's traditional to do that. Given that this was a website and not a print publication, there was no space problem for the writer.