Monday, July 11, 2005

Judith Miller in jail

I generally support press freedoms, whether on First Amendment grounds or otherwise, on the view that the public benefits from greater access to information, including that derived from confidential sources. Still, I can't detect in myself the slightest bit of regret that Judith Miller is currently doing hard time (or, more likely, irksome but not very hard time).

Apart from Miller's being, so far as I can tell, one of the worst journalists in America, who was grotesquely and repeatedly misled by or else complicit with official lies during the U.S. march to war in Iraq, I note, as have many others, that she is not exactly protecting a whistleblower here. Rather, she is protecting leading Administration officials who used her in their drive to punish and deter dissent that took the form of exposing truth in response to officially sanctioned lies.

I wonder if Miller has only been misled and used by the Bush Administration, or whether it is worse than that. Is the Times certain of her loyalty to its interest in presenting honest reporting and in leaving partisan hackery to the Op-Ed page?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If one did have the slightest bit of regret that Miller is being jailed for protecting the identity of her source, reading the self-righteous editorial in the Times last week (“Judith Miller Goes to Jail,” July 7) should ease the conscience.