"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Judy Miller as Martyr:
Those Shoes Don't FitPosted 11:50 p.m., Oct. 25, 2005
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I confess it. I'm no good at sending out thank-you notes. I've had lots of coaching on the matter, but somehow I always forget. So if you've ever done anything for me deserving of gratitude, please accept this as my blanket thanks. You're absolutely da bomb.
But let me say this: While I lack the note-sending gene that made such a consummate political player out of the first President Bush, I know of one particular thank-you card I would be utterly certain to send.
If I ever get imprisoned for protecting a confidential source, I will be certain to send a note of thanks to Judith Miller.
Just Reward?
Last week, despite my own weak pleas, the Society of Professional Journalists gave out its First Amendment award to Miller. (I am an SPJ member.)
Before the award was given, I emailed a request directly to outgoing SPJ President Irwin Gratz, and to several others in the organization requesting that SPJ suspend the award for a year while it investigated the circumstances surrounding Miller's imprisonment. Was it something she had to do, or was she protecting someone who neither deserved nor even desired her protection?
As yet I have not heard back from anyone at SPJ. It's too late now. The award was given Miller on Oct. 18. Too bad.
Recall that Miller went to prison to protect a source who apparently didn't really want her protection, though Miller somehow decided independently that her source--Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby--was coerced into releasing her from her promise of confidentiality. In other words, to borrow writer Matt Welch's phrase, she was protecting Scooter Libby from himself.
But then, once it became apparent that the special prosecutor might extend the term of the grand jury currently probing the outing of a CIA operative (Valerie Plame), Judith Miller changed her mind. Though she emerged from prison waving the proverbial banner of martyrdom as a First Amendment warrior, in point of fact, she did exactly the same thing she would have done if she avoided imprisonment in the first place. She told the grand jury what Libby had said to her in confidence.
Don't misunderstand. I have tremendous respect for SPJ, and don't propose to give up my membership. But I am troubled that, apparently in its zeal to secure passage of a national press shield law, SPJ eagerly drank up the Kool-Aid Judy Miller brewed when she left jail last month and proclaimed herself a martyr to the cause of freedom for journalists everywhere.
"I chose jail because none of the best stories in my 30-year career at the New York Times could have been done without confidential sources."
-- Judith Miller,
First Amendment Award
acceptance speech
Las Vegas, Nev.
Oct. 18, 2005
A Scientific Experiment
Listen, I'm no Judy Miller. I have won no Pulitzers. (Still working on it!) Arguably, she is a great journalist and I am a pedestrian hack. Be that as it may, I can say with an absolutely straight face that the best work I have ever done as a journalist involved no confidential sources.
I've found that when a reporter is confronted with someone who wants to talk to the press to get their point across--and if the reporter takes the firm stance that they're not interested if the information can't be attributed--the source will usually talk on the record. Not always, but usually.
You should try that once, Ms. Miller.
I can't speak to the particulars of Miller's claims about her best work. There no doubt are instances where she could not have done the work she did without granting certain sources confidentiality. But I suspect that if she wasn't so eager to grant confidentiality as a means of protecting her status as a Washington insider, if the elite media in general weren't so liberal in that regard, probably a good deal of great work, and a whole lot more responsible journalism, could be done.
How about this as a little experiment?
What would happen if the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the three TV networks and the national cable news channels all agreed that for one year they would refuse to grant confidentiality to anyone in the White House at the cabinet level and above, including their staff members, unless the case being dealt with clearly involves a whistleblower? Perhaps the rule should apply to all paid presidential advisers.
What kind of actual news would be lost? If officials were forced by the media elites to affix their names to their words, would we be losing crucial information, or would we merely be shedding ourselves of phony policy trial balloons, anonymous attacks and innuendo?
I grant we'd probably lose more of value than that on occasion, but I'd sure love to find out. Just for one year. (Want to wait until a Democrat is in office? Fine by me.)
Gimme Shelter
In candor, there's a good chance I might not be quite so snarky about all this had Miller, in her published mea culpa in the New York Times, not managed to sneak in the following passage. It comes in explanation for her wildly off-the-mark reporting about Iraq weapons of mass destruction, an issue directly germane to Plamegate--the mess that got Miller arrested:
"W.M.D. -- I got it totally wrong. The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could."
-- Judith Miller,
"The Miller Case: A Notebook,
A Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal"
New York Times
Oct. 16, 2005First of all, not everybody got it wrong. Second of all, to borrow Maureen Dowd's phrase, reporting is not stenography. If the source is wrong, the reporter--and the reporter's editors--are dutybound to find out about that before they go to press. That's not just a suggestion. That's an obligation of free and responsible news media.
Judy Miller would like me to believe that by going to jail, she has made my life as a journalist a whole lot easier. After all, she is now front and center in the fight to get a (much-needed) national press shield law in place.
Problem is, this is exactly the wrong case to base that law on. A national press shield law would have the effect of making available in federal cases the same protections that most states grant reporters--protecting their right to refuse to disclose confidential information without fear of sanction. It is a right that has limitations--testimony can be required of reporters in some cases.
Though they vary from state to state in their details, most state press shield laws generally provide that confidential information gleaned by reporters cannot be subpoenaed unless a prosecutor can show the information is highly material and relevant to a court case, there is a compelling need for the information to be brought forward, and that there is no other way for the prosecutor to obtain the information.
Given that, assuming a national law would reflect state laws, it's kind of hard to see how a press shield law would have protected Miller's right to keep Scooter Libby's secrets. After all, the man might very well have tried to use Miller to out a covert CIA agent.
Beyond all that, shield laws are meant to protect the Karen Silkwoods of the world, not the Scooter Libbys.
Judy Miller wants me to supplicate to her as though she is journalism's Jesus. Don't hold your breath. The truth is, what Miller really did is to make it about 10 times more likely than it ever was before that I will wind up in jail for doing my job.
The crazy thing is, after all the ink that has been spilled on this thing, it remains as mysterious as ever what Miller was doing in jail. By all appearances, it served only one purpose--to further the prosector's case. Thanks again, Judith.
Let's give the final word to Slate's Micky Kaus:
"It's now clear confinement wasn't pointless. It worked for the prosecutor exactly as intended. After a couple of months of sleeping on "two thin mats on a concrete slab," Miller decided, in her words, 'I owed it to myself' to check and see if just maybe Libby really meant to release her from her promise of confidentiality. And sure enough--you know what?--it turns out he did!The message sent to every prosecutor in the country is 'Don't believe journalists who say they will never testify. A bit of hard time and they just might find a reason to change their minds. Judy Miller did.' This is the victory for the press the Times has achieved. More journalists will now go to jail, quite possibly, than if Miller had just cut a deal right away, before taking her stand on 'principle.'"
-- Kevin Featherly
