Media's silence speaks clearly about their loyalties

The Miami Herald ^ | December 15, 2003 | EDWARD WASSERMAN edward_wasserman@hotmail.com

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Remember Joseph Wilson? Valerie Plame? Probably not. They had a moment of fierce media notoriety a few months ago. The full story has never been told, but they're not in the news anymore. The Washington press corps apparently decided that respecting one journalist's dubious secrecy pledge outweighed any professional duty to get to the bottom of a nasty, and potentially explosive, instance of deceit and reprisal.

Wilson was the retired career diplomat sent by our government to West Africa last year to look into reports that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had been trying to buy uranium for weapons. Wilson reported that he had found no evidence of such an effort. Nobody else has either.

Nevertheless, in his State of the Union Message in January, President Bush cited those attempts to buy uranium in Niger as evidence of Hussein's hunger for strategic weapons.

Several months later Wilson wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times wondering aloud why the administration made claims that he, as its designated investigator, had concluded were false.

In response, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, one of the country's most widely circulated pro-Bush commentators, wondered aloud how come Wilson had been sent to Niger anyway. Novak concluded that Wilson owed his assignment to the influence of his wife, Valerie Plame.

She, Novak reported, attributing the information to two confidential administration sources, was an undercover operative for the CIA.

Now, blowing a spy's cover is a big deal. First, it's highly illegal. Plus, it imperils not just the operative but anybody who had dealings with her, especially if they didn't know her real job.

In the view of anti-Bush forces and Wilson himself, the leak was politically motivated. At a moment of growing embarrassment that U.S. forces couldn't find the big weapons that Bush said justified a pre-emptive war, spy agencies were eager to say that the intelligence they had produced was solid.

Exposing Plame warned the spy community that any whining about findings being ignored or distorted would be treated harshly. The Washington Post later reported (and Novak denied) that ''two top White House officials'' had offered the Plame information to a half-dozen journalists.

That's a terrific story: A respected diplomat is sent on a sensitive mission to see if a deranged dictator is trying the get The Bomb. He concludes No. But his report is ignored, because the decision to go to war has already been made. When he objects that the government is making assertions contrary to the facts that he assembled, somebody in the administration blows the diplomat's professional cover.

Who did this? Who authorized it? You'd think that the media would be all over that question. It ought to be gettable, especially if the Plame expose indeed had been shopped to other journalists.

Instead, apart from a Justice Department investigation that's as promising as O.J.'s search for his wife's killer, the affair appears dead. Naturally, Novak won't talk about his source, but why won't anybody else get to the bottom of this apparent political hit? Why the silence?

That silence speaks eloquently of the news media's loyalties. Industry leaders have said that it isn't seemly to burn another journalist's source. They aren't worried when the honorable custom of shielding vulnerable informants works not to serve the public but to give cover to political bushwhackers.

It doesn't matter that here, instead of illuminating the exercise of power, confidentiality conceals it.

A healthy practice turns malignant, and political hitmen get a free pass to take their shots -- a license to shill. In the Wilson-Plame affair, one columnist's anonymity pledge has been accepted as binding on the whole news business, including reporters who weren't party to the original pact and disapprove of it.

Wilson and Plame were last seen posing for Vanity Fair. Apparently,they're not suffering too badly from this affair. It's the media that deserve the biggest hit. They've become complicit in the very intrigues that they should be exposing. For the sake of a news morsel, they've been turned from watch dog to lap dog.

Edward Wasserman is Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I guess Mr. Wasserman doesn't read Vanity Fair or even look at the pictures.

Valerie Plame, who worked for the CIA is seen seated with her husband, ex-diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, in their Jaguar convertible in this photograph taken on November 18, 2003, near the White House for the opening spread of Vanity Fair, in Washington. Even as the Justice Department continues to investigate who leaked the identity of a CIA undercover officer to the press, the agent's photo is being published. (AP Photo/Vanity Fair, Jonas Karlsson, HO)

CIA Agent With Leaked ID Poses for Photos [Full text] NEW YORK - A CIA agent whose identity was leaked to the media sat for Vanity Fair photographs with her ex-diplomat husband in their Jaguar convertible near the White House.

In the picture, taken Nov. 18, Valerie Plame is wearing a head scarf and sunglasses to obscure her image.

"Ms. Plame came home while the photo shoot was being set up at their home in Washington and she became comfortable with the idea of being photographed, as long as she could maintain her anonymity," said Beth Kseniak, a Vanity Fair spokeswoman.

In addition to the car photo, the magazine has a smaller photo of Plame at home, reading a newspaper, in which the 40ish blonde's face is obscured. The photos and accompanying article were on New York newsstands on Wednesday and comes out elsewhere next week.

Investigators want to know who leaked the undercover CIA officer's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July. Plame is married to former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed as retribution for his assertions that the Bush administration exaggerated Iraq's nuclear capabilities to build the case for war.

The leaker could be charged with a felony if identified. [End]

[weegee]

If it is a scandal he is looking for, why not the Democrats' Memogate1 and Memogate2?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

About that memo

[swilhelm73]

The reason the storied died is interesting, and has nothing to do with this author's rant.

As more facts came out the press released the story was getting more and more embarrassing for Wilson and Co. Consider the following;

1) Wilson was on the payroll of a Saudi controlled front group, and the Saudis have publically admitted that they buy the support of former diplomats in such a way.

2) Plame's boss suddenly and unexpectedly retired right after the story broke - which tends to indicate he, and by implication Plame choose Wilson - the strident anti-war activist to go.

3) Wilson never filed a report, and his incestigation was considered so shoddy it never made it anywhere near reaching the president.

4) British Intelligence stands by their statement that Hussein tried to buy uranium in Africa.

5) The press claimed that this story was floated to six reporters besides or including Novak. No other reporter has come forward to admit being part of this group.

6) Plame's employment was an open secret in DC, and many reporters already knew she worked for the CIA.

[DB]

Aren’t Iraqi officials now claiming they found a letter indicating Saddam did in fact get uranium from Niger?

[lentulusgracchus]

So do you think Wilson -- who did some political

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!!

[L.N. Smithee]

Wilson and Plame were last seen posing for Vanity Fair. Apparently,they're not suffering too badly from this affair. It's the media that deserve the biggest hit. They've become complicit in the very intrigues that they should be exposing. For the sake of a news morsel, they've been turned from watch dog to lap dog.

Maybe they weren't really "watch dogs" after all. Did you ever stop to consider that, Mr. Wasserman? After blowing smoke all over the front pages of the nation's newspapers and magazines without any accompanying fire, Wilson and Plame all of a sudden are acting as if they are reality-TV figures instead of supposedly credible foreign policy experts! Why are you blaming the media for not picking up torches and pitchforks?

Face it, pal -- the only one who cares about this "story" any more are you and other people who swear they would never reveal sources...unless, of course, it would cause problems for George W. Bush.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***Edward Wasserman is Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University. ***

------His title fits like a glove.

January 2001 - Columbia Journalism School Adds Prof. Al Gore

[patj]

More of the same old, same old, from the left.

[weegee]

I can't recall the numbers right now but I think that memogate1 was the plan to use information from the national security investigation to nail President Bush and memogate2 was the plan to stall Bush's black and hispanic judicial nominees.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I stopped buying newspapers and have stopped watching all news except on Fox.

The medias roll is to report the news and not comment on it. They have *failed miserably* and should be taken to task.

[an amused spectator]

Wasserman's ignorance speaks clearly about his loyalties

Why does Free Republic know more about the Plame Blame Name Game than this "Knight professor of journalism ethics"?

Wasserman is either ignorant of the facts that make Wilson and his "spy" wife look really, really bad, or else he's got marching orders to try to puff this punctured Zeppelin back up.

It's Christmas break at Washington and Lee, Prof - go have another snort of rum punch. ;-)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes...it's hard to keep track of the Left's dirty tricks.

[pseudo-ignatius]

do you have a link to a story saying that Wilson was on a Saudi payroll?

[Moby Grape]

You hit the nail on the head...the LIBERAL media DROPPED this story because it was LEADING back to WILSON having been a liar who was on a mission to hurt Bush...they KNEW this was going to backfire.

[ladyinred]

LOL! Oh she is really upset about her identity being revealed isn't she? As if that stupid head scarf and sunglasses obscure her features. What a sham this entire thing is. And yet Mr. journalistic ethics here is concerned about the despicable leaker? Is he concerned about memo gate? NO!!!

[PLMerite]

Okay, I'm still trying to figure this one out...

What exactly did Plame *do* for the Agency? Was she a real spook or just an employee?

Was she married to Wilson when he was an Ambassador, and where did he do his ambassadoring? (Yeah I know, but it sounds cute). Was she supposed to be spooking when and where he was an Ambassador?

All of this is very fishy. Just like the Newt cellphone "accidental" intercept.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[weegee]

A muslim terrorist outside of the CIA headquarters shot at CIA workers during the Clinton administration and there wasn't nearly this level of interest in the safety of CIA employees.

The left are a bunch of lying liars. They consider the CIA one step away from the KGB or SS and think that former President Bush must be evil because he headed the CIA. They can't play both sides of that coin. The tears they cry are as phoney as the ones Bill Clinton shed for the camera at Ron Brown's funeral.