http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/ethics_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001264571excerpt:
Miller turned the WMD fiction into a front-page crusade for an American invasion of Iraq, making her supporters wonder whether the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist had become a stooge for The Bush Administration. But she is also a terrific reporter. I doubt that the non-WMD Miller would believe one of her confidential sources had recanted a confidentiality agreement without at least interviewing him alone. Without looking into his eyes, observing his every movement, alert to every facial tic -- and then calling up a half dozen sources to check him out.
In this case, Miller had a newsroom full of some of the best reporters in the world who could do the legwork for her. But none of them were able to prove that the Libby of 2005 was any less coerced than he was a year ago.
Miller had been one of the few Washington reporters involved in
the Plame-Wilson outing case who had not accepted Libby’s claims that he was an independent agent. She held fast as Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine (twice), and Tim Russert, The NBC-TV Washington bureau chief, all testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case.
But Miller wouldn’t bend. She knew that reporters who promise a source not to disclose his identity must never break their word. Otherwise whistle blowers would stop talking to them.. And she went to jail to uphold a principle. But now that she is out, it is hard to deal with what she has done.
She testified about her conversations with Libby. She handed over
her notes to the special prosecutor, explaining they were redacted – as if that mitigated anything. Then, last week, she sent more notes, from a June 23, 2003, interview with Libby, to
the prosecutor.
A reporter’s notes are never supposed to be shared with anyone but his editor.
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