Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite who accidentally set off the discovery of General Petraeus's affair by reporting a string of threatening e-mails to the FBI last year—e-mails that turned out to be from Paula Broadwell, General Petraeus's secret lover—has given her first interview since the scandal broke. The scandal itself got more buzz than it was worth (those soap-operatic turns! Multiple generals! Wealthy socialites! Shirtless pictures!), but the interview's worth a read for its look at how the frantic hunt for leads in a breaking news story can end up getting some things really wrong.

On those threatening e-mails:

Contradicting virtually every published account of the saga, Kelley indicates that the anonymous e-mails did not warn her to stay away from Petraeus, as is commonly assumed. And yet the press depicted the two of them as “romantic rivals. Think how bizarre that is,” Kelley says.

On the e-mails between her and General John Allen, whose relationship with Kelley is now under investigation, putting his promotion to NATO commander on hold:

These e-mails have been described by some unnamed government officials as flirtatious and potentially inappropriate. But Kelley told me they were so innocent that they were sent and received under an account she shares with her husband because she lacks her own e-mail address. She also says Allen’s wife was often copied on the notes.

Of course, everything Kelley says should be taken with a carton of salt—she's wounded, she's clearly trying to restore her image, and, as the article delicately puts it, she "sounds naive at times about the way the modern media machine functions." But if you were wrapped up in the scandal when it broke, it's an interesting other-side follow-up a couple months later. Read the rest here.