 Ever since I called
Judith Miller a heroine when she first went to jail, I've been reading
what others have said about the grand jury investigation, most notably this
wrenching self-investigation from the NYT staffers, and staying quiet.
Today I think I finally know enough to (a) predict what's going to
happen and (b) comment on what all this (should have) taught us
I
still think Judith Miller is brave, and that she did the right thing
going to jail. I'm probably the only one in the world that still thinks
so. Here's my reasoning:
- You get close to your 'sources' over time, and your
desire to protect them becomes more than just a matter of principle.
- She said (and in the paranoia of Bush Washington there's reason to
believe her) that she believed Libby's willingness to waive source
confidentiality was coerced, which suggests to me that she knew that
Bush/Cheney were willing to sacrifice Libby because they had 'plausible
deniability'.
- She
was also right to believe that when Libby's lawyer made the point about
saying no other reporters had suggested Libby knew or talked about
Plame, it was a blatant warning that if she were to testify and say he did,
she'd go down. This gratuitous addition to the 'you can testify'
clearance was unquestionably an attempt to influence her testimony.
- She
wasn't willing to sacrifice Libby, and I don't think that's
because she wanted to hide the crime, she just couldn't see the point
in Libby taking the fall while the higher-ups get off scot free (like
the bosses of the Abu Ghraib torturers).
- If
Libby does take the fall, and that's the end of it, there will never be
anyone in the Bush Administration willing to talk to anyone about
anything, especially not a whistle-blower.
The principle is
important. Whistle-blowers need to know the messenger won't always be
shot (or at least, they'll take the crook with them). Miller is a
second-rate journalist and a loose cannon, and a lousy poster-child for
the US first amendment, but the one thing the NYT management did right in this case was to support her for not revealing her source.
What the NYT did wrong was let Miller have far more autonomy in dealing with this
situation than they should have (far more than any
reporter should have). That is especially embarrassing after the Jayson
Blair fiasco, and
basically shows the NYT wasn't following its own procedures. For them
to admit they never bothered to second-guess why she refused to take
the 'you can testify' clearance at face value is just bush league. That
undermines the credibility of everything in the paper, which is the
only real asset a newspaper has. It's a sad day for the NYT.
The next crime in this case is one that both Miller and the
NYT were complicit in. That dates back to the initial reporting by
Miller that gave unwarranted credibility to the existence of WMD in
Iraq (or at least to suggestions Iraq was attempting to procure them).
The crime is a consequence of what James Surowiecki explains so well in
The Wisdom of Crowds
-- groupthink. When you work closely with a bunch of people for a long
period of time under difficult circumstances you come to trust them,
and to think like them. That's what she did, genuinely expressing her
concern about Iraq's WMD potential or intentions based heavily on the sense
of the team she was 'embedded' with.
The
very purpose of 'embedding' journalists is to elicit such groupthink,
and both the NYT and Miller should have known that. Groupthink is
excusable for us,
perhaps, but not for a journalist. Embedding is simply an unacceptable
and
inexcusable limitation on journalistic freedoms, and no reputable
newspaper should tolerate it, even if that means being 'scooped' on
distorted news stories by refusing to be part of embedded teams. What
were they thinking, to believe that somehow they would be immune to the
propaganda such circumstances are designed to produce? Don't they teach this in journalism school?
So, to sum up, lessons learned:
- We need better whistle-blower protection: US desperately needs greater federal whistle-blower protections,
including a source identity shield law, even though it is open to
abuses.
The US is far from alone in this. The situation in Canada and Europe is
actually worse (perhaps due to complacency that we don't need whistleblowers).
- The media need better management, consultation and internal communication: Newspapers that want to keep their credibility and reputation need
to manage their people, and get them to share all information (other
than the identities of sources) openly, get second opinions, and
consult with others, so that collective wisdom is brought to bear in
all the organization's decisions and publications, and not left to individual
cowboy-mentality reporters operating with complete autonomy.
- The media should not condone or participate in 'embedding': 'Embedding' operations hopelessly compromise the objectivity of
reporters, and no respectable newspaper or news medium should
participate or allow their staff to participate in such operations, or
report anything that comes from such operations. All that does is abet
propaganda, and that's nothing short of journalistic misconduct.
- The media need 'auditor-style' independence and objectivity guidelines:
One of the (many) problems that allowed the Enron fiasco was the cosy
relationship between Enron and its auditors. The auditing profession
has (now even tougher) rules to prevent relationships getting so close
as to impair the objectivity of the auditor. So does the medical
profession with respect to relationships with patients. The media
should study these and adopt guidelines along the same line. Just as
there must always be a line between auditor and client, and between doctor and patient, there must
always be a line between journalist and source. Any degree of
casualness, intimacy, or personal feelings for a source should be
setting off alarm bells. Journalists need an additional question on
their fact-checking checklist: Are you so close to your source that it
might impair your objectivity?
And finally, my predictions, which I really, really hope are proved wrong:
- All the important people in the Bush/Cheney Administration have plausible deniability
and will be untouched by the jury findings (and because there's no sex
or violence involved, voters will soon forget and the political damage
to the administration will be minimal). The
only hope for a different outcome is that someone deep inside, for
reasons I cannot fathom, will risk all and blow the whistle on the
people at the very top. Unlikely.
- The cone of silence that
pervades this administration will get worse. There will be no need for
a memo from the top once everyone realizes that if you say nothing to
anyone and if you know nothing or can plausibly deny knowing anything,
you are safe. The only thing left is spin, and we'll have even more of
it.
- Attempts to introduce meaningful federal whistle-blower
legislation in the US and elsewhere will continue to fail because the
people who would have to pass such legislation (such as all branches of
the pork-laden federal government) are precisely the ones who have the
most to fear from whistles being blown. Not going to happen without a
huge shakeup in the people making the legislation (and in Congress, at
least, gerrymandering guarantees that that won't happen either).
- The
media will otherwise escape relatively unscathed, in part because the
public already distrusts them as much as any group has ever been
distrusted in recent US history, and in part because, for all the
failings of the NYT, its competitors are mostly much worse, so those of
us with any hope for the legacy media will continue to prop up the NYT.
The
irony of course is that everybody knows Bush lied about the reasons for
invading Iraq, just as everybody knows Clinton lied about having sex
with his intern. The fact that the consequences of that knowledge have
been so different for these administrations says more about the mindset
of the public than it does about either the presidents or the media. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
