Should we start protests directed at Judith Miller?

[Quixote1818]

The public is largely unaware of her track record and it might put pressure on her to speak up if she starts hearing the American public is turning against her. She thinks she is going to emerge as a hero but if we can swing public opinion then as she is sitting in Jail she might start having second thoughts about what she is doing and spill the beans.

Just a thought. I have no clue if this would be effective or not.

[bryant69]

1. We should protest against freedom of the press ?

I'm not sure, but it seems like that would backfire.

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H. L. Mencken

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[seabeyond]

3. protest bought media from the whitehouse n/t

[napi21]

2. No. Let Fitz handle it. The WH is busy hanging themselves

by pi**ing off the Press. When your enemy is busy digging himself a hole, give him another shovel!

[The2ndWheel]

4. Protest someone currently in jail?

How would that work? Do you mean like an intervention? Usually protests are to keep people out of jail, or to get them out. You don't normally see a "You're a crappy journalist, name names, then get out of jail" sign.

[leveymg]

5. First, we need to educate ourselves re Miller. Here is an excellent

article about her dubious accomplishments as a "journalist" employed by the NYT. Jack Shafer wrote what has become the classic expose, published in Slate in July 2003, of the Iraq WMD lies The Times editors allowed their "star reporter" Miller to publish, often on the front page, and usually without any countervailing articles by more skeptical reporters.

Shafer's article covers the period from late 2001, when the war mobilization effort in which "General Judy" was a leading player, through the invasion until July, 2003, when it finally dawned on (almost) everyone that Saddam Hussein indeed didn't have WMDs, and that Miller had had been peddling disinformation.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086110/
The Times Scoops That Melted
Cataloging the wretched reporting of Judith Miller.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, July 25, 2003, at 3:49 PM PT

Shafer ends his article with a couple questions that are today even more pressing -- because so little has been done by the NYT to correct its editorial misjudgment in giving Miller free rein -- than they were two years ago, when his article was first published:

"The most important question to unravel about Judith Miller's reporting is this: Has she grown too close to her sources to be trusted to get it right or to recant her findings when it's proved that she got it wrong? Because the Times sets the news agenda for the press and the nation, Miller's reporting had a great impact on the national debate over the wisdom of the Iraq invasion. If she was reliably wrong about Iraq's WMD, she might have played a major role in encouraging the United States to attack a nation that posed it little threat.

"At the very least, Miller's editors should review her dodgy reporting from the last 18 months, explain her astonishing credulity and lack of accountability, and parse the false from the fact in her WMD reporting. In fact, the Times' incoming executive editor, Bill Keller, could do no better than to launch such an investigation."

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