How Miller was used by source - Great LA Times column

As this column written by Tim Rutten of the LA Times shows some journalists "get it"  "Little Miss Run Amok" does not fool everyone

LA Times

The Times is a great news organization with a newfound capacity for self-criticism and a demonstrated capacity to renew itself. Miller, the reporter, represents something far more persistent and pernicious in American journalism. She's virtually an exemplar of an all-too-common variety of Washington reporter: ambitious, self-interested, unscrupulous and intoxicated by proximity to power.

The breathtaking ease with which Miller acceded to a demand from one of the executive branch's highest ranking officials that she mislead her readers about what really was occurring on an issue of literally life-and-death importance should be just that -- breathtaking. Unfortunately, it's just another shabby example of dirty work as usual among a certain time-serving segment of the Washington press corps

•  Miller

  We need journalists that will police & critizize their own. Frank Rich, Dowd, Rutten - how many others will come forward and fight for their profession?  

  by Kitty on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 05:27:46 AM PDT

  •  Kitty

    It might be a good idea to edit your diary title to reflect that this a column not a news article.

    Thanks for posting this I would have missed it.

    by pollyusa on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 05:55:25 AM PDT

    •  Thanks

      All Done

      by Kitty on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 06:06:23 AM PDT

  •  Interesting thing

    is that Kingiht RIdder broke a story peroving the docs were frgeries BEFORE the SotU speech.  But it was ignorted everywhere else.

    by irishwitch on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 09:39:24 AM PDT

    •  Knight Ritter is worth watching

      They're sort of considered second team, not having an outlet in NYC or DC.  But they've gotten a lot of stuff right, and sooner than other outlets.

      by Land of Enchantment on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 11:20:11 AM PDT

      •  Gotta firend who is the

        librarian/researcher for their D.C offic.e SOemtiems she's WAY ahead of the curve.

        by irishwitch on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 11:37:18 AM PDT

•  I like this passage

  Unfortunately, she has also become the poster child in the push for a national reporter's shield law, and this week she went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify for the Free Flow of Information Act. There, she didn't even blush when she told the lawmakers: "Confidential sources are the life's blood of journalism. Without them ... people like me would be out of business."

  Probably so, but there's still a case to be made for this legislation.
  

  Snark!

  by drag0n on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 05:41:55 AM PDT

•  IMHO-- This Is

  even bigger than Rutten lets on. the NY Times and other newspapers have a history of aiding and abetting war mongering white house adminstrations.

  this didn't start with BushCo. tin foil hat accusations aside, I really think we need to look at people like Miller, who I agree are ambitious, self-interested, unscrupulous and intoxicated by proximity to power and determine if they were indeed recruited at some point to shill for BushCo.

  let's review what happened (please correct me if I'm wrong). in the obvious well crafted propaganda campaign by BushCo to sell the war on Iraq to the American sheeple, cheney covertly spoon fed a bullcrap story about uranium flowing from Niger to Hussein. miller gets this bullshit publsihed in the Times, then two days later cheney references the article as "proof" the Niger uranium story is true.

  by Superpole on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 06:56:35 AM PDT

•  Thank you Tim Rutten

  Talk about hitting the nail on the head....   I especially like Rutten's analysis of Miller's agreement to refer to Libby as a "former hill staffer" (emphasis added):

  "Did Mr. Libby explain this request? Mr. Fitzgerald asked. No, I don't recall, I replied. But I said I assumed Mr. Libby did not want the White House to be seen as attacking Mr. Wilson."

  You can bet he didn't. As the Los Angeles Times' Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger reported Friday, Libby was obsessed with Wilson and determined to discredit -- and defame -- him. Why take the chance of leaving your own fingerprints at the scene of the crime, when the Washington press corps continues to be studded with useful idiots like Miller, who would whack their own grandmothers for a byline above the fold.

  by mikidee on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 07:08:37 AM PDT

•  Carville

  Carville said this?  Chicago Tribune

  
  As Democratic operative James Carville said in August, "It's going to be very interesting to see whether [Miller's] problem is a 1st Amendment [problem]--i.e., I want to protect a source--or a 5th Amendment [problem]--I was out spreading this stuff too."

  Just what did Mary tell him?

  by Kitty on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 07:18:26 AM PDT

•  Great Column

  Thanks for the post.  I guess it's nice to seem some in MSM are finally getting this, although its way to little way too late.

  by davidkc on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 07:58:08 AM PDT

•  One of the most hard hitting MSM articles

  in recent times.

  Particularly when the focus of the article is a fellow journalist.

  
  he Washington press corps continues to be studded with useful idiots like Miller, who would whack their own grandmothers for a byline above the fold.
  

  by SwingVoter on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 08:03:18 AM PDT

•  Why did Judy not print a thing on Plame?

  I know this has been explored countless times but no satisfactory explanation has emerged.  The reason this stymies me is a nagging suspicion that she was definitely after a bigger story.  She has "volunteered" that she wasn't interested in the Wilson leak in her Sunday account.  Her motive might've been to blow the lid of the Niger documents as a restitution for her flawed WMD reporting.  Is it so far-fetched to think that by the time she was back in the States in June of 2003, the scales fell from her eyes and decided to pursue the real story?
  Could Miller have decided she wasn't going to cooperate with what she considered a dead-end investigation and undercut her critical access to persons who could unlock the mystery of forged documents?
  Up till now I have been as rabid as the next koster about Miller.  The way this has played out with contempt charges, jailing, an obtuse NYT, the games with Libby and the timing of her release is forcing me to consider a whole crazy angle to all of this:
  Has she "cooperated" with Fitzgerald the whole time?!  Did she go along with a set-up to have herself incarcerated for security reasons for what she discovered about the Niger documents?  Did Fitzgerald "pursue" her and jail her in Alexandria's high security prison as a ruse?  A huge curveball at the WH to keep them from guessing he was ready to look into Niger but needed to stew them in their juices a while, hoping for more evidence of a cover-up?
  It would explain why the NYT's has been left bewildered at why Miller wouldn't lay-out what she was up to by protecting Libby and going to jail.
  She might've told Fitz early on that her story was too critical, she was too close to endanger her confidences with the players on Niger to blow it on the Plame game.  Could they have worked out a deal, after convincing him of bigger fish, to let her slide and set up a faux resistence to testify,
  let the story come to her via visitations in Alexandria, and then WHAMMO!, pull a 180 back into  "life" and the GJ?
  She must've considered how her re-emergence would play out with her colleagues and the public.  The deal to limit her testimony to her conversations with Libby was part of the ruse.  Reassure the players she wouldn't spill the beans.  Was she really so stupid to think that Fitz wouldn't track down her contact with Libby in June?!  Calling her back under pretenses to round out her testimony on  Libby and more notes, might have been a set-up to layout for the GJ the real story of the Niger cover-up all the while Judy takes a beating in the press.
  Is it possible that Judith Miller wants to nail these SOB's as bad as Fitzgerald but had to undergo this playact for personal safety and a shot that sources would contact her to keep quiet.
  It's another wild theory, but think about just how crazy like a fox it could pan out for the investigation.

  by edsdet on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 08:21:47 AM PDT

  •  The weakness in your scenario is...

    ...that she played a very active role in the ramp-up to war.  To expose them, she'd have to do a huge mea culpa of her own.  Of which we've seen no sign yet.

    For that reason, I just can't see it.  Interesting thought, though.

    by Land of Enchantment on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 11:41:56 AM PDT

•  Thanks for calling this to my attention.

  I like Rutten's snarky tone:

  Unfortunately, she has also become the poster child in the push for a national reporter's shield law, and this week she went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify for the Free Flow of Information Act. There, she didn't even blush when she told the lawmakers: "Confidential sources are the life's blood of journalism. Without them ... people like me would be out of business."
  
  Probably so, but there's still a case to be made for this legislation.

  
  Also of interest is the business of the misleading thing of labelling Libby a "former Hill staffer".  But don't you notice that this happens all the time?  Many TV news "analysts" are in private consulting practice, but are only identified as "former XYZ".  This got a few moments of prominence when Henry Kissinger declined the position as head of the 9/11 Commission rather than reveal his client list.  We see him on TV only referred to as "former Secretary of State", but it's been nearly 30 years since he held that post.  Who's been keeping him in limos and Armani in the meantime?
  
  I suppose it makes a difference that we know their name, compared to an unnamed source.  But I think that problem's rampant.  Imagine how differently the audience would read an "analyst" if they knew they made a big part of their income from, say, a pharmaceutical company or the Saudi Royal family or some offshore banking conglomerate or even Halliburton?
  
  I'll start looking for Rutten's columns on my own initiative henceforth.

  I know the above box is ridiculously flashy, but I just discovered how to choose my own colors for blockquotes.  So wanna use it every chance I get to make sure I actually learn/remember.

  by Land of Enchantment on Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 11:14:42 AM PDT