-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fw: The Millergate scandal
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 20:54:19 -0700
From: Michael Munk
lastmarx2@netscape.com
To: APFN
Dear Mr. Van Natta,
Your Times story about yourselves reveals some but far from all
the mysteries of Judith Miller's extraordinary position on the
paper and perhaps more important in the "company." I was
surprised to learn of her personal relations with Sulzberger,
who seems to be managing the entire episode himself. This
information at least goes far to explain the extraordinary
lengths to which Sulzberger and Keller have gone to protect her
reputation (to say nothing of the massages, steaks and martinis
they bought her) which cannot be explained by a general concern
for all their employees. Indeed Keller used her legal problems to
stonewall his own public editor who refused to respond to his
questions about her including why, as the reporter primarily
responsible for the discredited WMD coverage, her name was
carefully omitted from the paper's mea culpa for that
reporting. Could there be an ideological connection connection
between Miller and Sulzberger?.
Your story carefully avoids any discussion of Miller's
ideology--although her association with Daniel Pipes' rabid
Mideast Forum and other evidence has long been suggested as an
explanation for her role as a transmission belt for neocon
propaganda. And it presents the story as isolated from her
consistent parroting of the neocon line. Was the glancing
reference to her returning to "national security" issues after
being taken off the WMD coverage intended to draw attention to
her last effort being going to jail--to transmit the neocon line
on the "Oil for Food" case: to punish the UN for failing to
support the invasion of Iraq?
And why ignore Wilson's CNN interview in March and Miller's
earlier meetings with member of WHIG? It's clear Fitzgerald
agreed not to require her to testify about them, but you're a
reporter--not a prosecutor--and she obviously refused to discuss
them with you. Its important for readers to understand that
Miller's relations with neocons like Libby did not start on June
23 (as the "Timeline" sidebar depicts): she went to him because,
as a member of the WHIG pr effort, he had long been a major
source for her false WMD reporting. She herself is coy in
refusing to nail down when Libby became one of her sources for
the WMD misinformation. She simply skips from 2001, when they
presumably first met, to that June 23, 2003 meeting.
Your story does not do justice to Fitzgerald's Sept 12 letter
(although it's linked) in which he clearly suggested Libby could
do himself some good by telling Miller she should testify.
Previously, a (Sulzberger?) editorial declared any efforts by
her to reach out to him from her jail cell would have
constituted unseemly pressure from a "First Amendment"
prisoner.
Still, it's a start!
Regards, Mike Munk
lastmarx2@netscape.com
===============================================
David Corn: “They leave the impression that we're still not ...
Huffington Post, NY - 7 hours ago
In Sunday's edition, the Times publishes a lengthy account by
three reporters (Don Van Natta Jr., Adam Liptak and Clifford
Levy) of what it calls "the Miller ...
Start to finish, Miller case took newsworthy toll The
Register-Guard
all 854 related »
'NY Times' Says Miller 'Certainly' Did Cooperate, But Editor
Cites Delays
By E&P Staff
Published: October 16, 2005 8:00 PM ET
NEW YORK In their long-awaited review of reporter Judy Miller's
involvement in the Plame scandal, a team of New York Times
reporters on Sunday noted that she was less than fully
cooperative with their probe, refusing to share notes and
sources or respond to many questions.
But the view of the top is a bit different. In response to a
request from Jay Rosen, chair of the journalism department at
New York University and blog producer at PressThink, for a
comment on this, Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis (according
to Rosen)replied: "While Judy put limits on what she would
discuss, the fact that she did sit for interviews and wrote her
own account of her testimony certainly represents cooperation.”
Rosen's response: "Represents to whom? I guarantee you her Times
colleagues did not see her 'limits' as reasonable or as
cooperation."
Meanwhile, the weekly New York Observer is out with a story on
its Web site today, in which Jonathan Landman, a deputy managing
editor who oversaw the Times' Miller probe, revealed why it was
delayed near the end, meaning the story missed the important
Sunday "bulldog" edition of the paper.
Throughout the previous week, Landman said, Miller gave
conflicting signals about whether she would write a story or
not. "We didn't have her first-person account," Landman told the
Observer's Gabriel Sherman. "We didn't have her perspective on
things. We got it a little before noon [Oct. 14]. It was very
frustrating.
"There was lots of off-and-on and on-and-off," Landman added.
"And that was frustrating too."
Sherman writes: "The reporters on the story--Don Van Natta Jr.,
Adam Liptak, Clifford Levy and Janny Scott--had been working to
complete a piece with or without Miller's participation, Landman
said. But when Miller turned in her first-person piece late on
the morning of Oct. 14, the reporters had to race to re-report
details to reflect her assertions, with less than a day to spare
before deadline.
"Executive Editor Bill Keller, who was traveling in China,
reviewed a partial draft. Copy editors received the piece by 9
a.m. on Saturday, but it was too late to turn the package around
for the noon bulldog close."
E&P Staff (jdefoore@editorandpublisher.com )
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001306761
