www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/7/1148/62336
Politics Don't forget: This isn't the first time Plame prosecutor Patrick Fitzgera ld has tangled with Judy Miller while investigating a leak out of the Bu sh White House.
reported on TPM how Fitzgerald had q uite aggressively investigated another Bush White House leak in late 200 1 and early 2002. Fitzgerald had been investigating three Islamic chari ties accused of supporting terrorism -- the Holy Land Foundation, the Gl obal Relief Foundation, and the Benevolence International Foundation. B ut just before his investigators could swoop in with warrants, two of th e charities in question got wind of what was coming and, apparently, wer e able to destroy a good deal of evidence. What tipped them off were calls from two reporters at the New York Times who'd been leaked information about the investigation by folks at the Wh ite House. Jul 07, 2005 -- 01:14:08 AM EST Now, the way I found out about all this originally was entirely fortuitou s While reporting on a completely unrelated story, I was interviewing a Washington foreign policy hand. And after some time talking we get to exchanging notes and speculating about the Plame investigation. My conversation partner told me he didn't have much doubt Fitzgerald woul d be aggressive. And he pointed to his knowledge of the earlier investi gation. In his view (though I was never quite clear why), in the earlie r case, the folks at the White House had actually had fairly clean hands .
And largely on that basis, I'v e always assumed Fitzgerald's inquiry would be the real thing. Certainly, one plausible way of reading the facts, though not the one I'm inclined toward, is that Fitzgerald's got it in for Miller. Maybe there's something Fitzgera ld knows about Miller's working relationships with particular figures at NSC or on the White House staff that made him fix on her, despite the f act that she never even wrote on the story. Of course, maybe it's just a weird coincidence, though it'd be quite a co incidence.
TPMCafe Denizen on Jul 07, 2005 -- 02:02:27 AM EST What reason would Miller have to protect these charities? I think Benevolence and Global Relief Foundation were saudi. I worked for Islamic Relief Worldwide and we knew that Benevolence would get in trouble eventually. As far as HLF was concerned, we knew they wo uld take heat just because they were helping Palestinians. But I don't see any possible connection between Miller and these organizations...
Maybe, wearing her reporter hat f or a change, she called them after she got a hot tip and asked for a com ment and/or a confirmation. At which point, the charities hung up and st arted shredding shit.
What I take to be the salient issues of this di spute are: * Protecting anonymous sources is a fundamental ethical imperative for a journalist. "Legitimate" has to be judged by the journalist, but we have a right to critique that decision when we have reasonable grounds to decide. There are gray areas, but Judith Miller and much of the press have gone way beyond those boundaries in the last few years. Legal protections are a different matter, but it is reasonable to assert that these folks are lousy and irresponsible professional journalists. This protection is not a fundamental First Ammendment right like freedom of speech and the freedom to publish without prior restraint. It is a corollary right that requires legislative definition, balancing other considerations that are also of fundamental social importance. In many cases if the journalist has shown a dedication to the principle of bringing the truth to the public, we (and the courts) should assume -- not knowing all the circumstances -- that he or she is acting on principle and in the public interest. In other cases, when the journalist has demonstrated a propensity to pander to power, regardless of the public interest, we have a right to assume that he or she does not deserve support and is not upholding any worthwhile principle. I would contend that Judith Miller does not deserve any indulgence in thi s respect. She is a lousy reporter, and she has a history of using anon ymous sources, not to enlighten the public, but to allow the adminstrati on to disseminate lies, protecting anonymous sources not from bureaucrat ic retribution, but rather from legitimate questioning. Worst of all, Miller and her supporters have degraded and cheapened an im portant journalistic principle.
I'm a journ alist too, and I'm damned sure that if I got a tip about Muslim charitie s about to be raided for supporting terrorism, that I'd pursue the story and the primary rule says that you gotta call the Muslim charities for their side and that's a darned good rule. Miller is, for very fair reasons, an unpopular journalist to those of us in the left of center crowd. But she isn't Bill O'Reilly -- I try to re mind myself that she is a real journalist and I even believe that she'd gore the neocon ox, if she had the goods. She's a pro and she has a rea l career that predates what's put her in the news in this era. I know m any journalists who have considered her an inspiration. My first reacti on to that, having only become familiar with her work post 9-11, was to scoff at that, but I was being uncharitable and unfair. But, I fear that, in the aftermath of th at, those of us who have criticized her Iraq work have lost sight of who she really is. She's a smart journalist who, for some reason I still d on't understand, didn't understand the partisan concerns of her Iraq sou rces and blew it. But she's still a smart journalist with a lot to offe r I guess I'd like to see us not demonize her at this point. Miller could well break a story that helps our cause, at any moment. But, she could well be spectacularly right in the future and we might even love her for it. This afternoon, when my employer's libel lawyer told me she had gone to j ail, I said, "Couldn't have happened to a nicer person." I think I lacked charity and perspe ctive when I said it. B ut, the more I think about this, the more I think there's another point of view.
TPMCafe Denizen on Jul 07, 2005 -- 01:56:02 AM EST You're kidding, right? If you got a tip that the cops were going to launc h a sting on some kiddie pedofile ring, you'd call the pedofiles and "ge t their side of the story"? What the hell are they teaching in journalis m schools these days?
If somebody tells me there's a kiddie p orn ring being run down the street, then I have to find out if there is one or not. And you can't just report that somebody is a child pornogra pher without getting a rebuttal, admission, or explanation.
That is enabling crime, IMO Your attitude is a great explanation of why journalists are near the bott om of the list of respected professions, Just tell people that you call pedophiles before they can be snared by th e law, and you warn criminals that the cops are on the way to arrest the m Then judge their reaction. Or maybe you'd prefer to call terrorists about to blow up a building and tell them the FBI was onto them. If you did any of the above, and I was a prosecutor, I'd get you for cons piracy, accessory before the fact, and whatever else I could charge you with to put you in prison till your dying day. You have no more rights than any other citizen, with the possible excepti on of concealing the identity of government officials that disclose unla wful acts by others in government.
When you get a tip about somebody committing, or about to commit, a crime, you don't KNOW that they're guilty, or that the tip is true. How can you write a true story without getting the side of the accused? A journalists job is to tell a true story, not to aid in a conviction (though, in many cases, our work does indeed, do just that).
I fully respect journalists, like you, who do their job well, get all sid es of a story and make an effort to get it right. But in trying to repo rt on an ongoing criminal investigation and therefore compromising an in vestigation, changes the reporter from someone reporting on the investig ation to someone who is part of the investigation...
The New York Times reporter had been receiving plenty of letters from rea ders who were eager for informati...
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