"Judy does as she pleases." (Devastating analysis of NYT's decline.)

[BurtWorm]

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/10/04/tms_pst.html


Clicking on to Seelye’s article last night, I realized that I didn’t expect the Times to try to tell me what it knew. I expected what I said Sunday: it’s Judy Miller’s New York Times. She deals with it as she pleases. On Sunday, Oct. 3, the Times had not tried to tell us what it knew, prompting Howard Kurtz of the Post to say: “I was hoping I would wake up this morning and see in my ‘New York Times’ 5,000-word piece by Judith Miller telling us everything that was involved. She has no more legal liability here. Matt Cooper did it.”

And Bill Keller could have ordered “it.” But Judy does as she pleases.

I like how Kurtz said he was “hoping.” There is something very basic to Times journalism about this kind of hope, which I shared with Kurtz that day. “They’re the New York Times,” we probably thought to ourselves. They’re going to tell us what they know— now that they can tell us. After all, we have been waiting while Miller’s ordeal wound down. “No piece in the paper today,” said Kurtz on “Reliable Sources.” He was surprised, and seemed a little sad too. The day before he had reported in Media Notes on frustration among Miller’s colleagues at the Times:

“People are angry,” one staffer said. “Was this a charade on her part for martyrdom, or a real principle? She wanted to resurrect herself from the WMD thing,” the staffer said, a reference to Miller stories about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be wrong.

Actually, I don’t buy it that she wants to “make-up for WMD failures,” and rehabilitate herself. The key to understanding Miller is to realize: she doesn’t think she failed one bit in her reporting before the Iraq war.

[mattclearing]

1. Journalism doesn't seem to be her first occupation.

She is disseminating propaganda for the government first, informing Americans second.

People like her make me believe in Operation Mockingbird.

[Stevepol]

2. I also don't believe her premise: a reporter has no obligation

to protect somebody who is committing a crime in talking to her. If the person talking to her is blowing the whistle on a crime, that's different. I hardly see how outing a CIA agent qualifies as whistle-blowing.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. It's obvious that they're hiding under the cloak of Liberalism.

No self-respecting Liberal journalist would have any problem recognizing that Judy is protecting herself and other criminals like her against the good of the public. A principled journalist would only protect a source which revealed information that would help the public good.

To those pundits who are part of this mess, I would add Lou Dobbs for helping to propel the myth that Judy Miller was being a good journalist.

[atommom]

4. Great article, and it raises some good points.

How DID she get to be the martyr in all this? Something smells very wrong here.

[BurtWorm]

5. kick

[enough]

6. A very interesting article and and interesting site

from Jay Rosen of NYU Journalism department. Thanks for posting.

[NNN0LHI]

7. As long as Miller collects a paycheck from the NYT I will not respect them

Simple as that. She is hurting the real journalists who work there. Didn't take them long for them to get rid of Jason Blair did it? And he didn't kill no one. Fuck the NYT.

Don