Posted on 12/31/2005 8:07:08 PM PST by quidnunc
The New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.
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.
Despite this stonewalling, my objectives today are to assess the flawed handling of the original explanation of the article's path into print, and to offer a few thoughts on some factors that could have affected the timing of the article. My intention is to do so with special care, because my 40-plus years of newspapering leave me keenly aware that some of the toughest calls an editor can face are involved here — those related to intelligence gathering, election-time investigative articles and protection of sources. On these matters, reasonable disagreements can abound inside the newsroom.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
should be trials!
Hey Byron...dust off your resume...the NYT's is going down...
What about the timing of publication on the eve of the Patriot Act renewal vote ?
Zot
So this is either spin or he's going to be looking for
new employment?
My thoughts exactly...this guy must be wanting a new job...because he is about to be unemployed.
WOW.
I envision the NYTimes as a nice yacht with its owners seeing a couple of torpedo trails heading their way.
"Loose lips sink ships" baby!
Dude, this is JANUARY 1st, not April 1st. :-)
To be a traitor or not? Sedition or silence? Tough call.
This is NOT a complete knock on the writer -- he is trying to sugarcoat a bitter pill.
A twofer. It takes your breath away...
Spin, just spin.
I can hardly wait to see what this bunch prints next.
There's nothing like emails to set the antennae of federal prosecutors quivering.
That being said, both my MI Senators and Representive for the district that I live in voted against renewall of the Patriot Act.
I promptly fired off an eMail to my Congresscritters informing them of my pleasure in their vote. And I made no mistake in presenting my opinion that the provisions of the Patriot Act were a most egregious offense to the Constitution of these United States. However, I pointed out that the 9-11 Commission made certain recommendations, and that in their expert opinion re-implementation of the Gorelick Wall would faciliate the War Against Terrorists, so much the better. But if another 9-11 occured, and a subsequent investigation determined that if but for the provisions in the Patriot Act being denied, the event could've been prevented and the perpetrators caught, the blood of the ensuing casualties would be on their heads.
What can I read into the server-response that my message was undeliverable. The very next day I read a news report that all Congresscritters went home for the year and won't be back until 18 Jan 06. I guess its reassuring that Congress will tackle this issue by the horns as first order of business when they return. I understand a vote has to take place sometime in February.
A most egregious omission in my response, was that my objection to the Patriot Act was that there was NO sunset provision. I urged my Congresscritters to vote against ANY bill that did not have a sunset provision.
Well, they got that right. Now the Department of Justice knows how many criminal leakers are out there. With each new story that comes out, more clues as to their idenity are revealed. The New York Times is about to leak their own sources out of hiding and into prison.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.