Idle speculation: What if the NY Times' silence is prelude to a scoop?

Everyone seems to think it's because of the NYTimes' complicity, which may be the case indeed. But what if...?


http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/10/10/shmr_nyt.html

The Shimmer: Missing Data at the New York Times

"Whereas a week ago, I was calling it 'Judy Miller's New York Times' to emphasize how she seemed to be the actor-in-chief, I now think it's more than that: a bigger unknown is affecting things. Not only is the Times not operating properly, it's unable to say to readers: here's why we're not."

When I talk about pictures in my mind I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer around the edges. There used to be an illustration in every elementary psychology book showing a cat drawn by a patient in varying stages of schizophrenia. This cat had a shimmer around it. You could see the molecular structure breaking down at the very edges of the cat: the cat became the background and the background the cat, everything interacting, exchanging ions…. certain images shimmer for me. Look hard enough, and you can’t miss the shimmer. It’s there.
— Joan Didion

“The news comes in code, and mostly the silences speak.” Last week, that’s how I described what happens when the New York Times reports about Judith Miller and her time in jail. This is still the case, and people in journalism are noticing how weird it is. “I find the Times’ conduct at this point inexplicable,” said Michael Isikoff of Newsweek magazine on CNN’s Reliable Sources. (I was on the show with him; so was Glenn Reynolds. The transcript.)

The host, Howard Kurtz, pointed out that when Isikoff’s poorly sourced story on the desecration of the Koran ran in Newsweek, (see PressThink on it) the editors “did an investigation and set the record straight.” Has the New York Times “come close to doing that here?” he asked.

No, it hasn’t. And no one knows why. The official story seems to be: “Wait for the official story.” Until then, normal operations are suspended. We’re told that Miller is talking to the paper’s reporters, and a major article is on the way. We’re also told it’s been delayed. There is no date for it. The editors will barely talk about it. Meanwhile the story keeps heating up. As ABC’s The Note observed today (Oct. 10):

If you aren’t spending 90% of your waking time thinking about this, talking about this, and doodling on your jeans about this, then you aren’t a member of the Gang of 500, and you probably never will be.

The gang, of course, is the Washington press.

from this (INTENSIVE/ENTERTAINMENT conspiracy story)...

Their silence is self protection and incompetence. One can only judge any situation by what has already transpired; anything else is no more than reading chicken entrails.

They're giving plenty of fodder for speculation, too. Their behavior is very strange, to say the least. Did you read the whole Jay Rosen piece? The left hand (Washington bureau) wants to know what the right hand (Keller & co.) are doing. They, like everyone else, want to write the story. So it certainly does seem that Keller $ co. have something to hide. But what is it? Doesn't it seem that the way Miller played it, she (or her lawyer, Floyd Abrams) intended to walk Libby into a corner to make it look like Libby was ready to obstruct justice?

Read Murray Waas's piece on the June 23, 2003, conversation between Miller and Libby that Libby didn't share with govt. investigators. It looks like some kind of dance is going on, doesn't it?

the story written... not that they want to write the story.
It seems more like they are trying to figure out how to not look too bad when it hits the fan.

But they are really in deep on this. Miller, certainly, but Keller and Sultzberger probably also know vastly more about Plamegate than the rest of us, certain factions in the WH excepted. They're doing some kind of dance with Libby and his lawyer. A very, very generous reading is that they're not telling what they know partly because they're in the middle of a legal strategem--probably to save the reputation of one of their (unaccountably) pet reporters, for sure; but possibly also to keep Libby or someone else--Cheney, maybe?--from escaping Fitzgerald's grip.

my hopes have been dashed so many times, but I do highly recommend it. Thanks so much for the link--I've only glanced at today's NYT, so far--saving in depth reading for later.

how to put it, oh yes, Paper of Record... it is not a happy day so if they are holding off fer a scoop, it may be the only way to save their stinky hides

Could the scoop involve penetration of gov'mint agents into the news room?

And that is more idle specualtion on my part.