Miller and Media Criticism

This is almost funny.

After the publication in the Times on Sunday of a 5,800-word account of the saga, some media analysts called on the influential newspaper to dismiss the reporter and others said it needs to give a fuller explanation.

And

Media critics said her explanation was hard to fathom and they criticized Times editors for what they called lack of oversight. The article also failed to explain why Miller tried to avoid testifying and why she never wrote a story about the events, they said.

''It's quite possible that of all the scandals and disturbances that the Times has gone through, this is the worst," said Michael Wolff, a media critic for Vanity Fair.

While the account was unusually revealing, said Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, ''Judith Miller's future is really in question. Her attempt to defend herself leaves a deep, self-inflicted wound."

She made matters worse, said Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University.

''She subtracted from public knowledge by introducing this unknown source whose name she couldn't remember," Rosen said. ''It's almost like the gaps in the Nixon tapes."

Inside the Times newsroom, reporters were angry and disappointed. ''People here are seething. They want some resolution," said one senior reporter.

Alex Jones, a former Times reporter who heads the Center for the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, said the paper's credibility is in question.

I love that part about subtraction from public knowledge. She doesn't originally write an article, but is forced to testify, and when she does write an article explaining the whole thing, she's subtracting. Doesn't this whole thing strike anyone as weird?

I'm also trying to understand why she had a security clearance. How is this squared with the concept of "need to know?" I seem to recall when I stopped working for the federal government that my clearance evaporated almost instantaneously. Did she still have the one she was given during 2003?

There is a round-up of various blogs discussing the "security clearance" issue. You'll get a chuckle noting that Powerline is called conservative, but Kos isn't labeled at all. (As a matter of fact, I don't see why Powerline is the only labeled blog.)