Wacky-assed

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nation Magazine, June 5, 2003

'Scoops' and Truth at the Times
by Russ Baker

Research assistance by Petra Bartosiewicz.

Who's the exact opposite of Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter
accused of inventing sources and quotes, plagiarizing and other sins? Well,
how about Judith Miller? Where Blair is young and black and inexperienced,
a rookie journalist whose job was largely to interview ordinary people,
Miller is middle-aged and white and a veteranTimes star whose job it is to
interact with the best and the brightest in science, academia and government.

But Blair and Miller have more in common than you might think. Both are in
trouble for giving readers dubious information. While Miller's alleged
improprieties are of a more subtle nature, and she comes into this rough
patch with an estimable reputation built over the course of a long and
distinguished career, her case reveals a great deal about the state of
today's news media. What Miller did, and the fact that her brand of
journalism is encouraged and rewarded by the powers that be, is precisely
the kind of topic that the Times's leadership ought to air during its
current semipublic glasnost phase. In Blair's case, the only serious damage
has been to the paper's image. Miller, on the other hand, risks playing
with the kind of fire that starts or justifies wars, gets people killed and
plays into the hands of government officials with partisan axes to grind.

Every morning, almost every other source of news looks to see what the
Times does, then follows its lead. On the morning of April 21, in a
front-page story from Iraq, Miller suggested that the main reason US forces
had failed to find the much-ballyhooed Weapons of Mass Destruction--the
ostensible primary reason for the invasion--was that they had been recently
destroyed or existed only as precursors with dual, civilian uses. Her
source? A man standing off in the distance wearing a baseball cap, who
military sources told her was an Iraqi scientist who had told them those
things. In the same piece, she floated unsupported claims alleging that
Iraq had provided WMD aid to Syria and Al Qaeda. In so doing, she put the
Times's imprimatur on a highly questionable formulation that was also
essential to White House political interests.

In response to questions to Miller, her editor, Andrew Rosenthal, told The
Nation via e-mail that the article "made clear that Judy Miller was aware
of his identity and in fact met him, but was asked to withhold his name out
of concern for his personal safety." Yet the article does not bear that
out. It says military officials "declined to identify him," that she was
only permitted to view him from a distance and that she was not allowed to
interview him but merely permitted to view a letter ostensibly written by
the man, in Arabic. "What's surprising and I think disappointing is that
the New York Times, not just Judith Miller, chose to take at face value the
initial assessments of a US investigations team that certainly has a vested
interest in finding WMD in Iraq," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of
the Arms Control Association. The New York Observer spoke with sources at
the Gray Lady who indicated widespread grumbling about the piece; one
source called it "wacky-assed."

full: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623&c=1&s=baker


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