When pursuing book projects, some reporters (paging Bob Woodward) scoop their own papers or withhold news until the book is published, upon which the paper publishes excerpts. Kudos to NYT's Diana Henriques for getting her exclusive interview with Bernard Madoff into her newspaper immediately. Her book publisher is probably unhappy, but she owes it to the Times and Times readers. Perhaps there were also competitive pressures -- Madoff giving other interviews.

Among other eye-openers, Madoff told her he is helping trustee Irving Picard track down some of the fugitive money.

In the interview and e-mails, he also claimed credit for helping the court-appointed trustee who is seeking to recover lost billions on behalf of his swindled clients. In e-mails, Mr. Madoff said repeatedly that he provided useful information to Irving H. Picard, the trustee trying to recover assets for the fraud victims. He met with Mr. Picard’s team over four days last summer, he said. The e-mails were written in December and January, but he only recently agreed that they could be made public.