Calame Rips NY Times
Byron Calame, the public editor with the NY Times, has written an article in his newspaper ripping their coverage on several levels. Here’s a couple examples:
For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush’s secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States. I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.
So much for the era of transparency with the NY Times. It’s over almost before it started. The truth is that I, and quite likely others, saw this as a publicity stunt whose purpose was to pacify angry readers who saw the shoddiness in their reporting process and their hyper-partisan agenda against the Bush administration.
I wish Mr. Calame good luck in either prying this information out of Mssrs. Sulzberger and Keller or in utterly embarassing them in print.
Protection of sources is the most plausible reason I’ve been able to identify for The Times’ woeful explanation in the article and for the silence of Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller. I base this on Mr. Keller’s response to me: “There is really no way to have a full discussion of the back story without talking about when and how we knew what we knew, and we can’t do that.”
TRANSLATION: There isn’t a way for us to have a full discussion without telling you who the traitors were that leaked this highly classified information. And we can’t have traitors going to prison when we’re trying to ruin a man we hate, George W. Bush.
If it’s really that simple, then it’s time that they have another housecleaning at the Times. Condoning or the eliciting the leaking of highly classified information that’s led to the prevention of further terrorist attacks is evil and quite possibly illegal.
With confidential sourcing under attack and the reporters digging in the backyards of both intelligence and politics, The Times needs to guard the sources for the eavesdropping article with extra special care. Telling readers the time that the reporters got one specific fact, for instance, could turn out to be a dangling thread of information that the White House or the Justice Department could tug at until it leads them to the source.
TRANSLATION: Speaking even briefly about this might give federal prosecutors the lead and the evidence they need to convict the traitors who leaked this to us. And the story is bigger than any national security interests involved. Trust us.
In conclusion, Mr. Calame rips his bosses for their lack of transparency but understands it to an extent because he agrees with the idea that traitors that leak highly classified national security information need protection from the media that report the leaks. PATHETIC.
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing