By: Michael Calderone

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham talked up his new Andrew Jackson bio last night with Jon Stewart before explaining why the magazine permits embargoed campaign reporting, the basis for its 50,000-word, election postmortem.

"You really have a choice," said Meacham. "You could either not have that reporting at all, or you could have them telling you the truth when they know it’s not going to be quite as potentially harmful to them."

"I’d rather have that first, rough draft of history altogether, than not have it at all," Meacham continued.

Stewart seemed to accept the defense of Newsweek’s embargoed reporting, conducted with the precondition not to publish before election day. And Stewart didn’t bring up some of the questions of accuracy that have arisen since publication.

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