WP: At the NY Times, Eavesdropping Scoop Deferred

[Marie26]

The Washington Post
Saturday, December 17, 2005

The New York Times' revelation yesterday that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct domestic eavesdropping raised eyebrows in political and media circles, for both its stunning disclosures and the circumstances of its publication.

In an unusual note, the Times said in its story that it held off publishing the 3,600-word article for a year after the newspaper's representatives met with White House officials. It said the White House had asked the paper not to publish the story at all, "arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."

The Times said it agreed to remove information that administration officials said could be "useful" to terrorists and delayed publication for a year "to conduct additional reporting."

The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that the information is included in a forthcoming book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," written by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday's story. The book will be published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601716.html?nav=hcmodule

[PSPS]

1. Gee, The Times is lying ... again

The only motivation, we now are told, for The Times printing a story they were obediently sitting on at the request of bush turns out to be ... it was going to come out anyway.

So, if there were no book coming out, the would have continued to obediently print only what was approved in advance by bush?

[Marie26]

4. I bet they would

I fail to see why they needed a year for an "ongoing investigation," then they finally have enough info to publish at the same time a book is coming out. And I do not understand their reasons. "The Administration asked us to stay quiet?" So should the Washington Post have sat on the Watergate story cause Nixon asked them to? The press is not supposed to be keeping the powerful happy. Finally, what bothered me most was the part that said that the NY Times decided not to publish after officials assured the Times that the program was proper & did not raise legal questions. Hello? That is not a newspaper's job. Their job is to tell us what's happening; let the American people decide if this program is proper or not. The fact that editors took it upon themselves to decide the "legality" of this program, or what the American people need to hear, is highly patronizing and disturbing. At this point, I'm not surprised by anything Bush does, but I am surprised at how the media continually defends, justifies, or covers up these actions.

[high density]

6. I wonder how long this "year" was

Does it mean from December 2004 to December 2005? Or was it more something like October 2004 to December 2005? It would have been so "liberal" of them to publish this story during the election season. :eyes: Of course the act of suppressing the report for a "year" shows no bias at all. :crazy:

[emdee]

8. My guess would be pre-election....

as was the same with much info that was hidden.
emdee

[Marie26]

13. I'm thinking pre-election

Note that the paper says they waited a year after the editors talked to senior White House officials, not a year after writing the story. The reporters would have first talked to the NSA sources & gathered the information for the story - and only then talked to the White House for confirmation. If the White House raised an objection, then the editors & senior Administration officials would get involved to discuss if "national security" should stop publication of the story. It would take at least a couple months to go from the initial reporting & writing of the story to the discussion between senior editors/Bush Administration over publication.

So, if editors met w/WH officials a year ago (Nov.-Dec. 2004); that means they must have received the actual scoop & story far before that. (At least Sept.-Oct. 2004 - way before the election.) This would explain why senior officials pressed the NY Times about keeping the story silent - they were desperate to avoid bad press. National security concerns? - more like Bush Admin. security concerns. If I remember, the NY Times was also working on a story about the alleged wireless Bush was wearing in the first debate. But the editors decided it was too close to the election & might "unduly inflence" the results, so they didn't publish that story either. It sounds like they were sitting on a number of negative stories that they weren't revealing for whatever reason.

[tularetom]

2. It only came out now because the Slimes

realized it was about to get scooped by its own reporter? WTF is this rag good for? I guess its still the cheapest table cloth for when you are eating crabs.

[depakid]

17. Rushing to the bottom

The Post is already there- but the Times has been pressing hard to catch up.

[dpbrown]

3. Holy crap! Write James Risen and thank him for publishing!

The only reason the NY Times published the story they were holding for the Mayberry Machiavellian administration is because it was going to come out anyway!

[qanda]

5. NY Times= Expensive bird cage lining

[jmowreader]

7. If you live in NYC, it's the cheapest fish wrap available

It comes in nice big sheets, and you get a lot of them for 50 cents.

[qanda]

9. Yeah, but I could a whole Sunday edition of the Washington Post

And it will cover the bird's droppings for at least a few months.

[jmowreader]

18. The WP is just as big a tool of the BFEE as the NYT

'Course, if you're closer to DC than NYC, the Washington Post is a MUCH better buy.

But is that newspaper the kind of thing you really want to be exposing your bird to? Considering the ideas on the modern paper's editorial page, and the pro-Bush slant of the rest of the rag...one of these days you're gonna wake up and find your bird's grown a second head or something. Oh, the humanity!

[boston bean]

10. Sounds just like his reasoning for not releasing the Abu Ghraib pictures.

[Doctor_J]

11. WaPo shouldn't really be bashing the NYT

they pay Bob Whoreward's salary after all. The two papers are competing for the title of "least journalistic alleged newspaper". Get your info from the internet and the few honest papers like the NiagraFallsReporter and the Toldeo Blade.

[Pithy Cherub]

12. The New York Times, the paper of TREASON

and Grand Canyon sized ethical lapses. Jesus fuckin' Christ on a Trailer Hitch - what will it take to get them to collectively and CONSISTENTLY learn that they are there for the public good, not themselves. The NYT is a paid for and bought tool of the Bush Dictatorship. The NYT are media whores on the cheap. Look how much the public should not know as decided by the editors, publishers and leadership (haha) of the NYT! They have the moral courage of McCarthy, the professionalism of Ken Lay and the interest in full factual reporting of The Quibbler. Ugh!

Why should anybody trust that freakin' paper? It certainly is not on the side of America and the ideals this country was supposed to stand for!

[TahitiNut]

14. How many U.S. citizens are "would-be terrorists"???

Fifty million? Seventy million? One hundred million?

You can drive a whole fleet of trucks through the modality of "would be". I can state with complete confidence that, given the circumstances, I "would be" a terrorist! Who the hell could possibly say they "wouldn't"??

This is, at its heart, the attitude of a dictatorship. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin ... you name one ... this is the attitude: the people are the ENEMY!!!

When this kind of 'thinking' takes hold, then no person can be safe. How many people are "would be theives"?? How many people are "would be murderers"? How many people are "would be criminals"?? Given the 'right' circumstances, I doubt there are many who aren't "would be" something.

This isn't 'due process' or any kind of 'justice' ... this is the heart of a totalitarian ideology. Don't wait for anyone to actually do something wrong - just take away their very liberties that make it possible.

[janx]

15. That was perhaps the most interesting part about yesterday's

article in the Times. The article left a LOT unsaid.

[Blue_Tires]

16. how much more have they sat on?

i hope somebody somewhere is keeping a list