A Star Reporter Fights Subpoena, and Criticism -LAT (re: Judith Miller)

[Rose Siding]

snip>
"I am involved in a fight, a fight for my life right now," Miller, 57, said, "which is to stay out of jail and to continue to be able to function as a reporter. That has been an all-consuming fight."

Miller's path into the pantheon of journalism heroes might be unobstructed were it not for a second vein in her work that just won't go away. That is her reporting on Iraq, particularly in the months leading up to the war, which an array of critics have said uncritically trumpeted the notion that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

Alternately acclaimed and derided — sometimes by the same audience, or even the same individual — Miller occupies a peculiar station in American journalism. The phenomenon was in evidence during her two-day visit to UC Berkeley this month.

"I applaud her willingness to go to jail to protect her sources, but this does feel a bit like part of Judy Miller's rehabilitation project," said Sandy Tolan, a Mideast expert and instructor at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. "Maybe that's because she keeps saying, 'I'm no martyr, I'm no martyr, I'm no martyr.' "
....
"So I would be going to jail for a story I didn't write, for reasons which I don't know, for something which may not actually have been a crime," Miller told the audience at Berkeley's Wheeler Auditorium. "It's become kind of Kafkaesque "

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-miller27mar27,0,597098.story?coll=la-home-nation

[Goldeneye]

1. Didn't Novak

testify who the leaker was?

[Rose Siding]

3. Novak hasn't been called, as far as we know

He could even conceivably be a subject of the investigation.

[Stephanie]

7. No, we have heard that Novak did testify

and did name names - and that the other reporters were called by Fitzgerald to corroborate in order to establish more charges against the leaker. This was reported on the Jim Lehrer Newshour a few weeks ago.

[Rose Siding]

8. I saw, but nothing ever seemed to come of it

This, right? It looks like they are remarking on a report by someone else:

snip>
JIM LEHRER: Now there's some new stuff on that, is there not, or at least around the edges?

TERENCE SMITH: There appears to be. For the record, neither Robert Novak, the columnist, or Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, has said whether he has come in and testified as to his source. Neither one will talk about it.

JIM LEHRER: And he is not, of course -- it's important to make the point here: He has not been cited for contempt or in any -- no action has been taken against him in any way whatsoever; don't even know whether or not he has, in fact, testified. But the new development --

TERENCE SMITH: But the new development is that it has been reported that he has testified, at least gone in and talked with a prosecutor-- that his source has been identified.

JIM LEHRER: That he named the source?

TERENCE SMITH: That is the report.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june05/mediawatch_02-24.html

What report was Smith talking about- do you know?

[Stephanie]

9. I don't know - it's infuriating, incestuous, inside-the-beltway gossip

that is destroying democracy. If only we had journalists more interested in doing their jobs than in going to the best parties, we might have a hope in hell. This report sounded to me like they all knew what went down, that it was common knowledge, however we little people did not need to know. Right?

[thebigidea]

2. and by star, I presume they mean warmongering liar and shill for Chalabi

What's Kafkaesque is her attempts at portraying the coverup of a crime by a powerful government striking out at its enemies as the courageous actions of an uberjournalist, representing all journalists everywhere and their right to confidential sources.

that's what's Kafkaesque - oh wait, I meant completebullshitesque.

[wildwww2]

4. A star rewhoreter maybe. Judith Miller is not a real journalist.

And never has been in my opinion. She prints what the right wing wants and always has. I want to know what I`m sure other posters would want to know. Why is Novak not in jail and being charged with treason? I`d sure expect a liberal to be treated that way if the tables were turned.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

[Pithy Cherub]

5. Judy needs a lesson in personal accountability.

She was head cheerleader for Chalabi. Now she wants sympathy because her choices are so drastic. Either way she doesn't get her reputation back without some severe cracks in it.

[warrens]

6. I'm a journalist

She's dead wrong. But I know why she is doing it. She doesn't want to cough up the names of the people who fed her disinformation about WMD. She has lost her book contract and no one other than her supporters at the Times (who are getting far fewer) will ever believe her again. She is a sloppy, biased, ignorant reporter. She is whoring for the pentagon to get inside info, and she is just as bad as the WP's real estate writer, Steno Sue Schmidt.

I hope she goes to jail and rots. This is a woman who is everything that is wrong with journalism, a massive ego with nothing to back it up. Her books are considered total shit by people who know the subject matter, because she never asked anyone apart from her sources what was going on.

She's not a journalist. She's a careerist. Fuck her.

I have far more sympathy for the guy from Time. I think he is legitimately concerned with the anonymous issue. I tend to try never to use anonymous sources, but I do when I have to. But I tell them, if there is something fishy here, I will have to cough up your name.

My profession is making a huge mistake defending this asshole. There was a crime committed and telling a grand jury there was no crime is just waving a red flag in front of a bull. Whoever made that call knowingly broke the law. A reporter should never be complicit in a criminal act, except in certain situations, such as being undercover.

[KlatooBNikto]

10. The best way to describe Judith Miller would be to say she is an

unabashed Israeli propagandist of the Likud variety. She is a close friend of Laurie Mylroie who puts out many tales demonizing Arabs.She is certainly a close friend of Wolfowitz and through him Ahmad Chalabi. Their so called 'sources' are all neocons with a vested interest in promoting the PNAC agenda of world conquest through subjugation of Arabs and stealing their petroleum.

If we look at this woman from any other perspective as though she is a typical American reporter, we will fail in getting to the bottom of this. She is not just a reporter.She wants to create the news which has led to the deaths of countless civilians in Iraq and the deaths of many soldiers. If a war crimes trial is ever held, she should be on the dock with the other criminals.