JUDITH MILLER: protecting criminal intent: Salon 7.8.05 [View All]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/letters/2005/07/08/miller/index.html

I suppose the journalistic breast-beating over Miller going to jail was to be expected. No profession loves to trumpet its own importance more. But am I alone in just not giving a shit? "Dainty" Miller, whose crappy reporting helped mire us in an unnecessary war, is going to jail (presumably) to shield a felon. Or maybe she is simply shielding one of those great White House sources of hers -- God knows, their information has been pure gold in the past. Either way, does it matter? The courts have ruled that Miller should turn over her notes. Are journalists above the law?


-- Elizabeth Bass


Oh, how I wish our press could distinguish apples from oranges...

Can members of the press truly not distinguish between protecting a source of genuine, good-faith news, and protecting someone seeking an accomplice willing to facilitate a criminal act?

The outing of Plame had nothing to do with news. The intent here was criminal revenge and the willful endangerment of national security. These are not protected by the First amendment.

But please, members of the press, continue your feckless hand-wringing. As you go to jail with chin up, whining about the "chilling effect" of it all, you have my thanks for, once again, utterly missing the point.


-- Patrick Cunningham


The real question is, why didn't anyone who knew the identity of the leaker reveal it earlier? There are at least six reporters who knew who the leaker was -- because he tried to leak to them. And those reporters don't even acknowledge the disconnect here.

The recent vision of Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC talking about this case with other reporters -- and no one reminding her that, uh, she knows the truth and has all along and just never bothered to share it with her viewers -- makes me think that Washington journalists have lost touch with reality. They have a big pink elephant pooping in their living room, and they have agreed not to talk about it -- or even explain why they aren't talking about it. They're an embarrassment. Whatever it is they want, it isn't "a good story," because a bunch of them have been sitting on one of the best stories of the decade.


-- Alicia Rasley