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New York Times execs say the paper and its staff stand firmly behind jailed Judy Miller. But off the record, some are telling reporters a different story.
Aug 17, 2005 | When George Freeman, assistant general counsel for the New York Times, makes his way to his office at the Times' Manhattan headquarters, his colleagues usually raise the same topic of conversation: Judy Miller. As one of the attorneys working on Miller's behalf, Freeman says his co-workers are never-ending in their curiosity about the case. "People ask me about it every day, on the elevator, everywhere," Freeman told Salon. "How's Judy? How's she doing? Not a day goes by that I am not asked by someone."
With Miller now incarcerated for 43 days and counting, interviews with nearly a dozen Times staffers reveal widespread concern for Miller's welfare and support for the principle for which she is being jailed. "It is extremely upsetting to see a colleague in jail," says Adam Nagourney, a Washington correspondent. Adds Eric Schmitt, another D.C. colleague, "Everyone remains quite concerned about what happened to her." "I think most people have nothing but sympathy for Judy's situation," noted Craig Whitney, an assistant managing editor and 40-year Times veteran. "And outrage that she has to go to jail for a principle that we all believe in." Indeed, both inside the Times and elsewhere in journalism, the paper is being praised for standing by its reporter as she defends a journalistic tenet most in the industry find sacred.
But numerous staffers also have told Salon that Miller's legal saga has become a burden, and not just for the paper's 12-person in-house legal team, which has been swamped by her case. Troubling many staffers is the dark cloud of unanswered questions about Miller's reporting and role in the Plame affair. Some at the Times contend that Miller has drawn unwanted attention to the paper at a time when it is still healing after the Jayson Blair fiasco dealt a body blow to its credibility. "It is a big bet for the paper," one reporter who requested anonymity said of the Times' unyielding support for Miller. "The paper chose to make this into something to fight to the death. It may have possible negative consequences for the paper's image when people are spending an enormous amount of time and energy on the credibility of the paper." Although several Times staffers were willing to offer criticism of the paper, none would do so on the record for fear of retaliation.
The grumblings inside the Times have grown louder as more questions have been raised about the scope and nature of Miller's role in "Plamegate." Many of Miller's colleagues are unclear about exactly whom or what Miller is protecting. In the face of limited information, some speculation has surfaced that Miller is only pretending to protect a source to divert attention from her past problems. No proof exists that the theory is true.
More prominently, a recent report that Miller met with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, less than a week before Robert Novak outed former CIA agent Valerie Plame in a 2003 column, has added to the speculation over what role Miller may have played in the leak of Plame's identity. The theory being peddled on the Huffington Post and elsewhere in the lefty blogosphere has Miller not on the receiving end of information from an administration leaker about Plame's identity, but as the one disseminating information about Plame to administration officials. This is just a theory, of course, with no known evidence supporting it. But it's fair to say that many Times staffers want Miller's role in the Plame affair clarified, and some of her Times colleagues are downright angry about what is known, and unknown, about her involvement.
Although Miller never wrote a story about Plame, she is one of several journalists targeted by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in his investigation of who leaked the agent's identity more than two years ago. Although Fitzgerald has subpoenaed and interviewed several reporters, Miller is the only one who has so far refused to disclose her sources, prompting a federal judge to sentence her to jail until either she gives up the source or the grand jury ends its work, likely sometime in October.
Some insiders claim the Miller case has sparked new questions from Times critics -- and employees -- about the paper's credibility given Miller's controversial past. Other staffers say the paper has not been very forthright with employees about exactly what Miller knows, what she had been working on when she learned of Plame's identity, and how much editors know about her sources.
"The most common denominator is that there are a lot of unknowns about it," says one Times reporter, who did not want to be identified. "Both what happened, what's going to happen, and how the case will proceed. There are different levels of knowledge." Another reporter adds, "There are a lot of unanswered questions about what the editors really know and the public should know."
Some staffers say Miller's reputation as a hard-driving news person who "has stepped on a lot of toes" makes it difficult for them to back her completely. Others point to her questionable reporting in recent years related to the buildup to the Iraq war, in which she wrongly reported the likelihood of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Such reporting prompted the Times to publish an unusual editor's note last year admitting it had failed to adequately question such claims.
"She is obviously a very contentious person," one co-worker, who requested anonymity, said. "There are people who have a question about the integrity of [her] reporting." Another colleague called her WMD reporting "a dark chapter." "I'm not sure there is a lot of sympathy or support," a third fellow reporter said about Miller. Her baggage even prompted one journalism group, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, to rethink giving her an award in early August for her efforts. After an ASJA committee approved the award, an outcry from some ASJA members sparked a reversal at the board level.
