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Research
assistance by Petra Bartosiewicz. Read James Carey's June
16 Nation editorial for more on problems at the
New York Times. |
ow did Miller get to a position in which she could write
such stories and her editors give them such play? Part of the answer
is journalism's star system. Out of the hundreds of thousands of
journalists in America, just a handful enter the firmament of media
stars, and Miller is one of them. Concentrating on the area of germ
and chemical weapons, she mastered the complicated subject and
racked up a score of successes, becoming part of a team that won a
Pulitzer Prize for the
Times and co-writing a formidable
though somewhat flawed bestselling book on the subject. She became
ubiquitous, appearing frequently on television.
Because reporters at these levels get unparalleled access to
high-level sources, they are uniquely positioned to publish
information that powerfully impacts government policy, public
perceptions and even life on earth. By the same token, high-level
sources use these journalists to selectively make public material
that is helpful to their agenda. "The reporting is indispensable,
because such journalists are able to win interviews and obtain
documents that others cannot," says Steven Aftergood, director of
the Federation of American Scientists' project on government
secrecy. "It is unreliable for the same reason--it cannot be
independently confirmed. And over time, it tends to adhere to a
certain narrow model of perception and a certain uniform way of
thinking."
Of course, these reporters don't act alone. Their market-driven
editors are complicit, ready to hype what is often little more than
tendentious hearsay in order to present front-page scoops. Aside
from attracting readers, such reporting--when it's on topics of
interest to the Bush White House--can immunize news organizations
against the persistent right-wing canard that they are liberal
patsies. It's safe to conclude that few people at high levels will
risk their jobs--and perhaps jail time--to leak unauthorized
material. Hence, what's given to reporters like Miller can generally
be assumed to be carefully orchestrated. The leakers know that her
reporting will play big. Rosenthal argues that all sources have
agendas, and notes that "whenever possible, the reporter should help
the reader understand these [sources'] motivations. Judy has done
this consistently in her coverage of the WMD issue."
A Miller appearance with CNBC's Brian Williams during the
pre-invasion propaganda campaign shows how the game is played.
Here's the intro:
Page one in this morning's New York Times, a
report by Judith Miller that Iraq has ordered a million doses of
an anti-germ warfare antidote. The assumption here is that Iraq is
preparing to use such weapons....
WILLIAMS: Iraq's attempt to buy large
quantities of the antidote in question was first reported by
veteran New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer Prize
winner Judith Miller in this morning's edition of the newspaper.
She is also, by the way, author of the recent book on terrorism
called Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War.
And she is with us from the Times newsroom in New York
tonight.
Miller then explains that "what worried people" was that although
the drug in question has civilian uses, it's unlikely that Saddam
would order a million doses for benign purposes. "That really got
heads up in Washington," she tells Williams. The anchor asks her if
the "Western assumption" is that Saddam is planning to protect his
military with the antidote. "Right, exactly," she replies. Consider:
The highest priority of the Bush Administration was to persuade the
world that Saddam Hussein constituted a grave threat. It found
indications of that threat and gave them to Miller, who rushed to
break the story.
Jayson Blair used the cover of unidentified sources to make
things up. Miller allows sources to hide their identities in order
to advance a self-serving agenda. Using unnamed sources is a common
and necessary technique in journalism. But sources should not be
allowed to remain unnamed when the information they are imparting
serves to directly advance their own and their employers'
objectives. In other words, a reporter needs a very good
justification for not naming a source--usually because a source is
saying something that could get him or her in big trouble with some
powerful entity. But what kind of trouble could befall some unnamed
Pentagon source who is leaking material in accord with the
objectives of the current Administration? The principal motive for
remaining under cover in such circumstances, besides preserving
deniability, is to gain greater currency for the leaked material, as
something that has received the imprimatur of our internationally
recognized "newspaper of record," the New York Times.
If the Times is serious about reform, it needs to stop
looking just at troublesome cases like Jayson Blair and to examine
its star system and its desire to break news, beat the competition
and all the while stay in the good graces of top officials. Good
journalism is about a lot more than taking advantage of connections
and access. It requires going wherever the reporting takes you. Even
if that means the story ends up not on the front page but on the
spike.
