BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. In politics and journalism -- and in political journalism --there are rules. And according to a frustrated member of the John Kerry for President Campaign, New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney breaks them. It seems the Kerry campaign made some not-for-attribution comments about competitor Howard Dean's anti-war stance, calling it "politically-motivated." Nagourney printed the comment, but also printed the source, spurring Kerry operative Stephanie Cutter to fire off indignant e-mails and drop Nagourney from her mailing list. Adam Nagourney joins me on the line from his office at the New York Times. Adam, welcome to the show.

ADAM NAGOURNEY: Hey, thanks for having me.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So -- Stephanie Cutter, the press secretary who sent out the release, complained to the Washington Post that the Kerry campaign, quote, "had never had a problem with ground rules before." She seems to be suggesting that you've broken them. How do you plead?

ADAM NAGOURNEY: Well, first of all, she just joined the Kerry campaign, so I'm not sure what she's referring to. This involves the campaign sending out a mass e-mail to reporters saying negative things about Governor Howard Dean, and in the preface to it saying that this e-mail should be treated as background and attributed to "a Democratic campaign" and not to the Kerry campaign. I think the rules of off the record and not for attribution are pretty clear, and most people would agree to them, and that is that you need to negotiate it with a reporter in advance. Speaking for myself, I would not agree to let one campaign attack another campaign anonymously, which is what they were asking for in this case.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So under what circumstances is it okay to withhold attribution, do you think?

ADAM NAGOURNEY:Let's say the campaign had some -- what we might call "negative information" -- say clips about other stuff Dean had said in the past or some [...?...] information that they wanted to give me, and I would either say yes or no --and I would, in a lot of cases, I would say yes, cause it might make for a fuller story. You know? But you can't just sort of say in advance, pre-emptively, I'm giving you this off the record. You just can't - I don't think you can do that. And I think that readers expect that in a case where one campaign is trying to do that, that the reporter should stand up and say hey, wait a minute -- if you want to attack him fine, but put your name next to it. You know?

BROOKE GLADSTONE:According to Howie Kurtz of the Washington Post, you have, in his words, "outed" background e-mails from the Lieberman, Edwards and Graham campaigns. Did you get the same sort of angry response from their aides?

ADAM NAGOURNEY: Nope. Nope. They were sending them out a while ago, and I had the same reaction. I just think you can send out a mass e-mail saying this is off the record or on background. So we just put it in the column. We just sort of included it, you know, in a sort of elbow-to-the-ribs sort of way. I don't think any of them had any complaints because I think they all -- they might not have been happy with it, but sort of understood this is the way the system works.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Adam, ultimately what does this avail you? You're the chief political correspondent for the Times, and the Kerry campaign apparently didn't send you their latest anti-Dean "truth-squadding," they call it. Are you burning your bridges, or is this a case of them needing you more than you need them?

ADAM NAGOURNEY: First of all, just because they're not sending it to me, I think they are sending to other people at the paper, and I think from what I hear, they stopped trying to do the pretense that this is off the record, so we're still getting information, and a lot of it is just sort of public document information, and I have a very professional relationship with most of the people in the Kerry campaign. I don't feel it really affects the way I report stuff at all.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Okay. Adam, thank you very much.

ADAM NAGOURNEY: Sure. Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Adam Nagourney is chief political correspondent for the New York Times.