Eavesdropping not the only story squashed for 2004 election

[deminks]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/new-york-times-_b_27741.html

This Sunday the New York Times' Bill Keller got dressed down on the paper's letters page, with scores of readers taking the executive editor to task for being evasive in his previous explanation regarding why--and for how long--the Times held back publishing its December 2005, Pulitzer Prize-winning scoop about the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program under president Bush. A program recently deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge. At the time of publication in 2005 readers were told the story, which the White House pleaded the Times not to publish, had been delayed for "a year.
But last week Times public editor, Byron Calame, confirmed the story had been held for 14 months, which, as many had suspected, meant the Times could have published the scoop during the height of the 2004 presidential campaign.


When Calame asked Keller why the paper had reported (vaguely and inaccurately) that the story had been held "a year", Keller conceded, "It was probably inelegant wording." Adding, "I don't know what was in my head at the time." When Calame pressed Keller whether the inelegant wording ("a year") and the sensitivity of the election-day timing issue had been discussed internally, Keller responded improbably, "I don't remember."

"It is depressing to think that the executive editor of The Times would even be able to speak this way," wrote Holly Ketron from Princeton, N.J., just one of many who lectured Keller in print about the proper role of journalists in a democracy.

Depressing, indeed. But even more depressing is the fact the eavesdropping story was just one of several legitimate news stories during the closing weeks of the 2004 campaign that were ignored by mainstream press outlets; stories that would have clearly hurt the Bush campaign. Stories such as the on-going Valerie Plame leak investigation, the tale of Saddam Hussein's hunt for yellowcake uranium, the looming military battle for Fallujah inside Iraq, and Bush's mysterious bulge spotted during the televised debates. I detail the media's disturbing, look-the-other-way approach from 2004 in Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.

[mrdmk]

1. The answer is in the forth paragraph.

"stories that would have clearly hurt the Bush campaign"...

[azurnoir]

2. You would think the WH or GOP

would show a little "gratitude", but no the NYT has been demonized for releasing information already known.
To the NYT let this be a lesson you could have handed the election to Kerry and did not, you withheld information from the American people that their government was illegally spying on them, but the criminals you shielded turned on you like rabid dogs the second it becomes convenient to them. Now hows that for thanks, next time do your jobs which is not protecting these criminals.