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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"Pravda-inspired self-justification": Salon readers react with outrage to Andrew O'Hehir's piece on the Judith Miller case.
Jul 13, 2005 | [Read "Imperfect Martyr," by Andrew O'Hehir. The first round of letters on the Miller-goes-to-jail story, and related Salon articles, can be found here.]
Andrew O'Hehir's piece on why supporters of a free press should "rally behind" Miller is a little exasperating. I'm all for the need for confidential sources when reporting the news. I'm all for protecting the privacy of whistleblowers. But the Plame affair is not an imperfect First Amendment case, as Times executive editor Bill Keller has implied. It could not be more different. The whistleblower in this matter is Joseph Wilson, not Karl Rove or whoever talked to Miller. Wilson exposed the Bush administration's lies about the efforts of Iraq to obtain uranium. He indicated the deceptions of the President's address in the open, on the Times editorial page. Officials in the administration responded by revealing the identity of his wife, in an attempt to discredit and perhaps punish him. This may well have been a crime. If those officials did commit a crime, they used unwitting journalists in the commission, perhaps trusting that promises of confidentiality would shield them from legal scrutiny later on. Nobody -- and certainly not O'Hehir -- has articulated why they should be so shielded!
The Bush administration has always shown great deftness in its ability to manipulate the press, and this case is illustrative. Now we have a reporter in jail for refusing to reveal the identity of someone in the administration who may have broken the law, and we are drowning in editorials that tell us she is a martyr (however "imperfect") for the First Amendment and that she has a duty to protect her source. Sorry, but it's enough for me that the First Amendment protects Wilson. Times journalists should cooperate with Fitzgerald's investigation. In this way they can work to ensure that those who would do harm to Op-Ed contributors are brought to justice.
-- Eric Knibbs
As he scolds Salon's letter-writers for their anger at Miller, O'Hehir ignores the legitimate argument for jailing Miller, which, ironically, I saw expressed in another of the Salon letters. The argument is that a reporter should be compelled to reveal her source when that source's identity is critical to a felony criminal investigation. All first amendment rights have exceptions, after all, and the courts apparently have determined that this is one of them. O'Hehir may disagree with that opinion, but this article should have been the place to debate it, and his refusal even to address it makes it hard to take him seriously.
-- Manuel Soto
I've read Andrew O'Hehir's "response" to Salon's readers twice now, first in confusion, then in disbelief. Astonishingly, O'Hehir doesn't really answer many of the criticisms he quotes or, for that matter, many other relevant points that he chooses to ignore from the letters that Salon has published or from the columns by journalists who disagree with him.
The problem with freedom of the press is that nobody -- including O'Hehir, I would assume -- is truly an absolutist. To use an obvious (if admittedly extreme) example, few would defend the right of a reporter to hide evidence of an impending catastrophic terrorist attack. Yet, when it comes to protecting sources (even those who screw over the journalists they've spoken to), O'Hehir seems to feel that we must be absolutists. Why? Rather than a reasoned (or reasonable) answer, he simply resorts to the claim that "a matter of fundamental principle might be at stake" and hyperbole about "the price we will all pay for this karmic redistribution of justice."
So we're back to old slippery slope. But, to chase the metaphor, Judith Miller's slope is on an entirely different mountain. O'Hehir does cite a reader's argument that "the source she's now protecting wasn't some selfless, embattled whistle-blower, but rather 'a high government operative determined to stab a whistle-blower in the back,'" and his response is... well, what is his response?
He doesn't seem to have one. He argues that "no reporter can be expected to check out the legality or ethics or motivations of all sources in advance," but he never addresses the reader's underlying question: When reporters and editors serve as unquestioning and propagandistic mouthpieces for corrupt (and possibly criminal) government officials, how is our press "free"? This dilemma underscores the real problem: we are close to entering a world in which the mainstream media is little more than another branch of the government, in which politicians have learned that they can turn a principle based on misguided journalistic idealism into a nearly invincible loophole for smear tactics and disinformation campaigns.
O'Hehir's reasoning quickly approaches Pravda-inspired self-justification for an atmosphere when state propaganda, press releases, and even corporate advertising are hidden behind the easy facade of anonymous sources. The implication is that journalists should be allowed to protect their sources simply because the "right" to do so trumps any other principle, be it the obligation of the press to serve the public interest, the refusal to serve as an unwitting accomplice to a crime, or the reluctance to serve as a patsy for some scoundrel more than happy to hide behind gullible journalists. He never explains why (or when) his cherished method of information gathering outweighs other, equally sound principles. He doesn't even define who's a journalist. Would O'Hehir argue that Armstrong Williams, too, has the right to protect his "sources" in spite of all those undisclosed paychecks coming from the Bush administration?
Maybe, rather than "paying a price" for Miller's punishment, the public will be rewarded when journalists realize they should think twice before trusting (or covering for) a vengeful and malicious administration official who hides behind their willingness to serve as martyrs. Even O'Hehir implies elsewhere in his essay that some good may come out of this: that the "free press" might finally clean up its act. Amen to that -- but I won't hold my breath.
In his closing, O'Hehir approvingly quotes one reader's sentiments, "The free press belongs to everyone; not just the New York Times, not Time, and not even to Salon and the blogosphere." Such an easy and irrelevant platitude avoids the real problem entirely. Instead, we should be asking ourselves what we should do when the press belongs to the White House.
-- David Cloyce Smith
It really isn't that complicated, and I'm astounded at how many people, left or right or wherever, don't understand that jailing reporters for following the standard code of journalistic ethics is a terrible idea, and more reminiscent of some backwards Zimbabwean nation than any America I want to be a part of. It's always disturbing when the left acts exactly like the right: It destroys any possible claim to moral superiority that we might have, and for what? To temporarily imprison some reporter with whom we disagree? I thought we were better than that. I guess we aren't.
-- Abraham Epton
It is a testament to Salon's integrity that you're wrestling with your readers' objections to Judith Miller apologists, showing more capacity for self-examination than many journalists at this juncture. I do not read the New York Times, so I have no axe to grind about Judith Miller's past reporting which clouds most discussion of this issue. The value of anonymous sources is unquestionable to any casual student of journalism. The problem is that O'Hehir and most other journalists believe that the right to protect their sources is categorical and beyond judicial review. As Michael Kinsley has pointed out, even Nixon turned over his tapes when judges ruled against him. We in the public value our journalists, but we cannot understand why they are above the law when Nixon's not.
O'Hehir and many of his colleagues talk often of the terrible consequence that will befall anonymous sources if Miller were compelled to testify. Why is there no discussion from O'Hehir of a different "chilling effect," the daunting message that Miller's own actions send to future whistleblowers?
Thanks to Judith Miller, the next Richard Clarke, the next Joseph Wilson, the next Coleen Rowley, the next Sherron Watkins will all know that if the administration doesn't like what they're saying, a "senior administration official" speaking on "double super secret background" can anonymously smear that whistleblower however he chooses. And the Times will defend with its reporters' own freedom the administration's right to secretly throw any mud they want at those who would expose the truth. Where is the concern about that very real possibility?
-- Brian Nelson
I don't think Judith Miller is Skokie redux so much as Martha Stewart redux -- the woman taking the fall for the smaller "infraction" while the guys (Ken Lay, Shrub, Cheney, Karl Rove, Robert Novak, et al. ad nauseam) walk away with relieved smirks on their faces.
The spectacle of Ms. Miller being punished for the treason she didn't print while no one seems to expect anything to happen to Robert Novak for the treason he did print is Orwellian in the extreme.
I have wondered if the reason Ms. Miller didn't reveal her source is that it is not Karl Rove, but someone who can be impeached. What does the administration have to lose if Karl dances around the legal system for the next couple of years and is granted one of those last-days presidential pardons (assuming he even gets convicted of anything)?
In my younger, less-informed days I was a hopeful idealist, however beleaguered, but events have made it clear that to be a realist is to be cynical, at least about the present administration and its co-conspirators.
-- Kate Gowen
Well, the self-flagellation part of Mr. O'Hehir's article offered some satisfaction, but he is still missing the point that his readers get. Anonymous sources are not born into this world with an "anonymous source" tag on their backsides. They are anonymous sources because a reporter grants them anonymity. Why did Judith Miller grant her source anonymity? It wasn't for a story, because, as everyone is so quick to point out, she didn't write one. She could have written, "White House aide attempts to reveal classified information to discredit war critic" and been a hero, but she didn't. She granted anonymity for continued access. This is not noble, but self-serving. It's not a First Amendment issue. It's a reporter covering her ass.
-- Rebecca Begley
