Arianna Huffington: Howell Raines Redux (more on Judy Miller)

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Huffington Post
Dated Thursday August 18

Howell Raines Redux
By Arianna Huffington

As The New York Times’ full-throated defense of Judith Miller hits new lows (Bob Dole brought in as a friend of the court?) the $64,000 question remains: Why is the paper linking itself so completely to Miller’s fate?

“The thing you’ve got to understand,” a source familiar with both Judy and the inner workings of the Times told me, “is that every big decision that comes out of the Times comes directly from the top. Nobody does anything there without Arthur Sulzberger’s approval. It’s the larger, untold story in all of this -- that he now runs the newsroom.”

Sulzberger, who succeeded his father as publisher in 1992 and chairman of the New York Times Co. in 1997, has been friends with Miller for a long time. But that doesn’t seem to be the reason behind the unequivocal stance on Miller. “You have to understand something about Arthur,” my source explained. “He’s always unequivocal. He doesn’t have another setting. You’re either his friend or his enemy. He either supports you in an extreme, almost childish, way or he won’t speak to you.”

Sulzberger has clearly chosen the extreme support path when it comes to Miller. “There are times when the greater good of our democracy demands an act of conscience,” he said after Miller was taken to jail. “Judy has chosen such an act in honoring her promise of confidentiality to her sources.”

Read more.

[Burried News]

1. Puff piece - see Peace Patriot in this thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1707056&mesg_id=1709633

[Jack Rabbit]

2. This is more complex than that

There may be something to what Peace Patriot says. Ms. Huffington's piece, however, is from another angle of the story: namely, why is Ms. Miller's employer supporting such a sloppy journalist? It's not like Judy Miller works for a fly-by-night right wing blog; she wrote her dead-wrong stories for The New York Times, a newspaper that once upon a time had a top-rate reputation until it started running her fiction about Saddam's nuclear program on the front page.

Arianna is asking why the so-called newspaper of record is standing behind a journalist who put egg on its face.

There are many questions we should be asking about Judy Miller, including to what extent was she just being sloppy with her sourcing and to what extent was she propagating for an unnecessary war of aggression. If it's just the former, she should lose her job at the Times. If it's the latter, she should be charged with war crimes and hauled before an international tribunal along with Bush and his neoconservative aides.

[Burried News]

3. For me it has always been definitely the latter, which I quote below

I guess I am assuming that is evident. You are right - it is not.
Appreciate your posting.

"If it's the latter, she should be charged with war crimes and hauled before an international tribunal along with Bush and his neoconservative aides"

[Jack Rabbit]

4. There is a greater question as well

Beyond what Judy Miller wrote and what of it the Times published, there is the greater question of why the media failed to keep Americans properly informed prior to the war.

Most of the rest of the world, laying in places where the US corporate media is not the only or even the primary source for news and information, knew that what the neocons were saying about Iraq was a lot of baloney. Even months after the invasion, many Americans still had serious misconceptions about the war and the reasons provided for it. Not coincidently, surveys also showed that those who held these misconceptions were shown to favor overwhelmingly the "re-"election of Mr. Bush.

There were perfectly good reasons to challenge the regime's case for war before the first missiles were fired over Baghdad. Those of us who reached beyond the MSM for information marched against the war not as knee jerk pacifists but as informed citizens. As it turned out, we were right and they were wrong on every important point.

[Burried News]

5. Not only were we right the readership of the Times were

against the war also. I was reading it regularly back then and the letters to the editor were lengthy thoughtful and in opposition to their editorial position.

However, I would like to make the point that after the WMD's were not found and Abu Ghraib surfaced, the times editorial board did a major about face and were scathing in their criticism of administration policy and the failure of the Senate to put the breaks on. One can say they were trying to repair their image. I was not that pessimistic although I sensed a fear of being scapegoated for the war. At the time I welcomed their turn (I needed some encouragement from anybody back then).

The determination of Judy Miller's role will go a long way in forming my final opinion. I will give them the benefit of the doubt until then.