And indeed, knowing people in the business gives a reporter advantages in covering it. Weber admitted without hesitation that the rumors were true. Two days after news of Weber's conflict of interest broke, Collins called Miller and asked if talks could resume. When she was at last able to speak with me in April, Miller told me about a telephone conversation she had with Daniel Menaker, Collins' editor at Random House, a couple of weeks before Weber's article ran in the Times. Miller, who had not spoken to Weber at that point and was unaware of the upcoming Times article, said Menaker's remark startled her.
People fight over permissions all the time.
You don't normally read about it in the New York Times. It seems notable that Weber didn't talk to Ed Ochester, for example, the well-known director of Pitt's poetry publications, and Collins' editor there. What they've done is foolish. Nor is it normal to put into mass production books for which the rights have not yet been procured. Collins missed another diplomatic opportunity in late April, when Miller and the Pitt Press quietly issued a press release announcing the settlement of the rights negotiations.