The NY Times, Judy Miller and 9/11: The most stunning failure yet?

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/003394.html

Just in the last three years, we've lived through a non-stop string of controversy and scandal at the New York Times -- the Jayson Blair scandal, the various Judy Miller WMD-misinfo-and-Plame scandals, not to mention questions about the timing of its (deservedly) Pulitzer Prize-winning scoop on warrantless wiretapping, which could have been published before the 2004 presidential election.

At this point, we thought that nothing new coming out of West 43rd Street could surprise us -- until today.

Because just now, some 56 months after the fact, we are learning that both Judy Miller and her editors at the New York Times had information that foretold the 9/11 terror attacks and elected not to publish it. Reading the new story carefully, it does seem that a decision to publish the article in the summer of 2001 was not a "slam dunk,' that there were legitimate questions whether Miller's tip was enough to hang a story on. But the episode does raise a couple of other serious questions -- surely about the pre-attack ineptitude of the Bush White House, but also over the Times' handling of this explosive info both before and after 9/11.

<snip>

So this is now the third time that the timing and flow of a news article with major impact on the electorate and the American political debate was affected by journalists working on a book, and the conflict that posed with their responsibility to newspaper readers. The others are Bob Woodward's withholding of information about the CIA-Valerie Plame case he uncovered during his book research, and James Risen's warrantless wiretapping scoop, which was finally published in the Times after he finished writing a book on the same subject.

There's got to be a better system here. In theory, we think that newspaper reporters writing books is a good thing, certainly for the career of the reporter and usually for the reading public. But must the public's right-to-know be a casualty, time and time again?

[elehhhhna]

1. Sitting on the info since 911 while the BA destroys Old America is

treasonous. Almost 3,000 dead on 911, friggin' 2450-something dead in Iraq as a "result" of 911...Moussaoui almost got the DEATH penallty for that sort of thing.

[Tuesday_Morning]

2. k & r

[ladjf]

3. Personally, I'm so sick of the New York Times misconduct that

I don't even get angry anymore. It is truly a disgrace to the news media profession. But, then again, so is the rest of the MSM.

[Golden Raisin]

4. I don't believe one word that comes out of Miller's mouth.

[MadMaddie]

5. If it is true...and if the Dems get back in power

Treason should be the word of the day.....from the Reporters all the way to the top......no slap on the hand....no bullshit...

The Rosenbergs were hung....