"Why Was Miller Fit To Print?"

[GreenPartyVoter]

It would be a great understatement to say that The New York Times is in a difficult position when it comes to reporting on the case of Judith Miller, the paper's reporter who is currently in jail for refusing to identify sources in the Valerie Plame Wilson leak investigation. No one wants to see a journalist in jail—much less one who labors on behalf of the same news organization.

So it is understandable that the paper's owners want to back one of their employees, and uphold the larger principle of source confidentiality. The Times' editorial page, however, speaks for the entire paper and represents its most cherished values of truth and honesty. An editorial on the Miller case published on Tuesday failed to meet those standards. Appropriate compassion notwithstanding, the editors of the Times have failed to clarify the exact role of their controversial colleague, aware as they are of Miller's checkered professional record and her seeming disdain for standards the rest of the profession strives to uphold.

While defending its own, the paper also has a larger responsibility—both to its readers and to journalism—not to serve as a propaganda organ, obscuring key unresolved questions about Miller, her work and this particular case.

Two weeks ago, as Miller went off to serve a likely four-month sentence at a federal detention center, a profile of her by a Times media writer almost cartoonishly obfuscated her crucial role in peddling war with Iraq through her series of completely wrong reports fed to her by sources closely tied to the very same White House figures at the heart of the Plame affair.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0721-32.htm