Margaret Sullivan, public editor at The New York Times says the newsroom "missed the boat" in failing to send a reporter to a recent pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning.

Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, is accused of leaking thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports on the war in Afghanistan, mostly to Wikileaks. The Times published some of the documents.

As Sullivan noted, it was the first time Manning had given public testimony and described the conditions of his confinement in Quantico, Va. "The testimony is dramatic and the overarching issues are imprtant. The Times should be there," Sullivan wrote.

Instead, the Times carried an Associated Press story on the hearing.

David Leonhardt, the Washington Bureau chief explained the decision to Sullivan:

"We've covered (Manning) and will continue to do so. But as with any other legal case, we won't cover every single proceeding. In this case, doing so would have involved multiple days of a reporter's time, for a relatively straightforward story."

The disagreement points to a key issue for all newsrooms, one that has become more critical with shrinking resources.

Working with dozens of local newsrooms on training and culture change, I have learned that setting priorities and sticking with them is a critical challenge. In the perfectionist culture of the newsroom, we like long to-do lists, we like to react quickly to whatever just happened. We're not very good at looking at each demand on journalists' time in the context of a strategic mission. It takes trial and error to figure this out.

So I'm mostly with Leonhardt on this one. Even if this particular call turns out to be questionable, his comments may reflect some thought about how to best use a reporter's time.

This is especially true if the tradeoff is several days of reporter time spent on a unique enterprise story instead of covering a hearing that other capable outlets are covering. If hearing coverage is abundant, shouldn't more reporters be free to cover topics where information is scarce?

(Of course, this approach is not problem-free. For one thing, an AP story would have little chance of making Page One of the newspaper while a staff-generated story might get more prominent display. And Leonhard cited previous coverage of Manning's confinement complaints - two stories published more than 20 months ago. Arguably, the Times owed the story more prominence even if it didn't staff the hearing.)

When I was recruited to be politics editor at The Oregonian in the 90's, the editors said they wanted issues-oriented and investigative enterprise to be the top priorities. Even so, a managing editor regularly showed up at my desk waving an Associated Press story from the state capitol and asking why we didn't have it.

My response? "Because we are working on something better." And usually we were. My accountability as an editor was to make sure our readers got depth and nuance that they could not find anywhere else - and to make sure reporters had time to do that. I had to learn to distinguish between news (go for it) and "newsy" (maybe not) because trying to match everything others were writing would have undermined our mission.

Some may read the Times' decision not to send a reporter as a signal that the newspaper doesn't think the hearing is important. That very traditional perspective made sense in the days of the newspaper as gatekeeper. No more.

For newsrooms that face this dilemma (and I am sure most do), here is one simple way to start framing priorities: Before reacting to an event, ask whether it is "Essential" to fulfilling the mission of the news organization or merely "Desirable." Setting priorities will still be tough, but homing in on the essential and building out from there will make it easier. (Of course, first you have to define and articulate a mission.)

In the case of the Times and Bradley Manning, I think sending a reporter to the hearing would have been desirable. No question. Essential? Depending on what that reporter was working intead, maybe not so much.

Update: On Saturday, the Times published a Page One story about the case.