ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF NYT'S SHOCKINGLY LOW STANDARDS

[mburbank]

Miller's Double-Crossing
In which a New York Times reporter gives away the farm to her military handlers for a dubious scoop.
By Jack Shafer


New York Times reporter Judith Miller struck an extraordinary sourcing deal with her military minders three weeks ago. Did she get taken?

The 600-plus reporters embedded with American and British units during the Iraq war agreed with their Pentagon handlers not to reveal coalition troop position or strength and to keep mum about battle plans or anything else that might directly endanger an ongoing operation. But Miller, who was embedded with the military, gave up much more to obtain her "scoop" about possible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert" (Page One, April 21) Miller disclosed that she agreed to 1) embargo her story for three days; 2) permit military officials to review her story prior to publication; 3) not name the found chemicals; and 4) to refrain from identifying or interviewing the Iraqi scientist who led Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha to sites where he maintained Iraqis had buried chemical precursors to banned chemical weapons. Although Miller didn't talk to the scientist, the military allowed her to view him from afar. She writes, "Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried."

According to MET Alpha, the scientist also said Iraq had sent unconventional weapons technology to Syria, had cooperated with al-Qaida, had recently focused its WMD efforts on research and development, and had destroyed WMD equipment just days before the U.S. invasion.

The next day on the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, Miller described the unnamed Iraqi scientist as not just the "smoking gun" in the WMD investigation, but the "silver bullet … who really worked on the programs, who knows them firsthand, and who has led MET Team Alpha people to some pretty startling conclusions. …"

But Miller's silver bullet tarnished overnight. The next day in the Times, she reported the military's new "paradigm shift" from finding WMD to locating the people behind them. Then Miller abandoned the remarkable findings of her April 21 scoop. The silver bulleted "Iraqi scientist" and his "precursor chemicals" vanished from her reporting after her April 23 dispatch. (She reprised some of his allegations and described how he made contact with American forces.) By May 7 she was writing about MET Alpha's search not for WMD but for an ancient copy of the Talmud! The Washington Post's Barton Gellman reported May 11 that the leaders of the 75th Exploitation Task Force, of which MET Alpha is a part, had found nothing and were leaving Iraq. At a May 13 Pentagon press briefing, 101st Airborne Division commander Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus downgraded to "theory" status the allegations the Iraqi scientist allegedly made to MET Alpha about destroyed WMD.

A follow-up story that amends the record seems to be in order—say, a Page One piece titled "Times Overhyped Iraq WMD Story; Sold Journalistic Soul for Access."

[KevinTheOmnivore]

[Zero Signal]

More like a paradigm shifting without a clutch.

[mburbank]

What's the matter, Times Bashers? Don't you think this sort of unparalleled rolling over and wetting oneself in submission to the Pentagon deserves criticsim? Especially since, unlike the scandal you're rolling in like Dogs in Manure, the Times has not retracted or even corrected of God forbid further investigated this story?

A NYT reporter lets the military show her a guy in the distance pointing at the ground, tells her he's an Iraqui scientist pointing out chemical weapons sites, and this is reported as fact? In the NYT?!

I find this far more damning than simple lies and plagerism. At least that was for reprehensible yet understandable personal gain. This appears to be printing a lie in order to curry better access to future lies.