Understanding Judy Miller: Judy the Mattress

[newyorican]

This piece on Judy Miller is written as a response by Times staffers against their boss's coddling of the most hated employee on the news staff. Make no mistake, Judy Miller is hated by her coworkers, which is rare in the incestuous, closely knit, no secrets world of the newsroom. I mean journalists sleep with each other, drink with each other and know each other's secrets. There is a general understanding that what goes on in the newsroom stays in the newsroom. For people to leap up and run down a collegue, and this goes into her professional ethics, is rare.

Former Chicago Trib columnist Bob Greene shagged many a young woman(some teenagers) to the utter disgust of his collegues. But even when his adultery was exposed, many of his coworkers, some of whom could not stand him, defended him. They defended his work, if not the man, and some defended the man. Other noted newsroom grumps like Jimmy Breslin, are never discussed negatively by their coworkers, even when they don't get along. People keep their shit in the newsroom.

-snip-

So when people talk about Judy Miller and her bed habits, there is powerful hate going on. I'll get into her mistakes later on.

-snip-

But Miller was SO wrong and so off base, that questioning her agenda is called for. She never even questioned how her sources kept coming up dry. Which most people would be angry as hell at. But MIller defended her reporting and her sources for a year. Even when it was clear that her work was wrong. Her editors have not even considered that she might have had an agenda in her reporting. Was it as simple as her plotting with Rummy? No. But since she shared a world view with these people, it was easy to stick with them and ignore the truth. And her editors have not even begun to ask her the hard questions they need to ask. Maybe they'll avoid it and let her go off to think tank land. But I seriously doubt Miller can withstand the emnity from her coworkers and the outside. At some point, before the end of the summer, she's going to have to get a job from her friends. Her actions, whether it was fucking warrant officers or being a useful fool for the neocons, have harmed the credibility of her employer beyond explaination. No one is going to protect her. She's made too many enemies for that.

It is only a matter of time before the question is raised why Miller kept her job for far worse sins than the mentally ill Jayson Blair was fired for. And if the questions come from the outside, the Times will have to worry about accusations of racism, no matter how well-deserved his firing was. And the Times black opponents have plenty of reason to go after them. What I don't think Bill Keller gets, and his bosses are blind to, is that journalists made a very nasty stink over Blair, some many black people felt was unfair. I don't, because I despise plagerists. But keeping Miller on is not just an internal or Washington problem. It affects the entire paper and they have to deal with it.

Understanding Judy Miller: Learning to read a magazine story

Understanding Judy Miller: Judy the Mattress

[salin]

1. These items were written a year ago - and yet Miller rolls on now

given the prime coverage spot for the "Oil for Money" investigation of the UN. Someone at the NYT likes her pushing the neocon agenda - or they wouldn't be giving her the prime assignment of pushing the GOP "UN is Corrupt and must be figuratively blown up" line. In her reporting she never compares the amounts in question of the UN story vs the amounts disappeared during the CPA in Iraq. Why ? Not just that the US looks worse in one than the other... but that the sheer amount of money makes the UN scandal look like teacakes.