USA Today Phone Spying Scoop Has Post and Times Scrambling

[Robbien]

the article talks about how WaPO & NYT dropped the ball. The interesting part of the article is the background story of the USA Today reporter Leslie Cauley

Cauley, USA Today’s telecom reporter based in New York, says she came upon the story in the course of everyday reporting. “Like any reporter,” she says, “one thread leads to another leads to another” in the “messy process of reporting.”

Cauley might have better leads and sources than any reporter on the telecom beat. She’s been covering telecommunications for 20 years. She has collected five beat-up Rolodexes. “I let my reporting take me where it took me,” she says. “I know a broad, eclectic collection of people, many in Washington.”

Cauley, 49, reported for the Washington Times in the 1980s and worked briefly for USA Today in 1992 and 1993. She left to cover telecommunications for the Wall Street Journal until taking a break to write books in 2001. End of the Line: The Rise and Fall of AT&T was published last August and was nominated for a Pulitzer.

Delving into the spook world is a detour for Cauley. Her expertise is the business of telecommunications.

“I have a great interest in public policy,” she says. “I’ve been detailed to work on this story for the foreseeable future.”

http://www.washingtonian.com/buzz/2006/0516.html

[babylonsister]

1. Whadaya know. A reporter who actually has many sources,

hunts down leads, and comes up with a huge story. And she was actually acting like a reporter! Other so called journalists could/should take some lessons...

[kenny blankenship]

2. That's OK

NYTimes scooped USAToday on all those Weapons of Mass Destruction that old Saddam had. Judy Miller and the Gray Lady were way out in front on that one! They knew stuff nobody else knew...not the UN inspectors, not even the Iraqis themselves.

Then there was the NSA wiretapping program that the NYTimes learned about--they were so far ahead of everyone else on this occasion (sat on it for more than a year) that they felt they could afford to wait until after the elections to tell anybody about it. They knew about it for so long they APPARENTLY FORGOT until one their reporters decided to write a book about it. That jarred their recollections a little...

For its part, the Washington Post was so far ahead of everyone else on the Downing Street Memo story, which proved that the Bush Administration had decided to invade Iraq regardless of the intelligence findings or UN inspections process and was determined to mold intelligence around a pre-determined war policy, that the Post felt comfortable in sitting on that one, keeping it from the public, much as the NYTimes had done with the wiretapping story, until some other news source (CNN) found out and went public with the DSM story on its own.

Yep, as long as they can stay 6months or a year ahead of everyone else like this, keeping Bush's secrets for him, with all other journalism outlets trailing along in their dust, they got nothing to worry about!

[Robbien]

4. The NYT is complaining they were the ones who broke the story

but when the Times finally got around to writing about it, the story was couched in such namby pamby terms. USAToday laid out the plan, flatly reporting the facts. NYT reported the program in BushCo butt-covering terms which gave BushCo cover to say "oh its just foreign calls by terrorists".

[bobbieinok]

5. RW talk show hosts keep repeating 'this is old news; NYT did this

in December'

[Robbien]

6. They sure did, Christmas Eve if I remember correctly

In addition to their bad reporting, could they have picked a better day for covering up the story?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. NYT reporters respond: "'Investigative reporting'? What's that?"

Never heard of it. :shrug:

[kenny blankenship]

7. It's just like their ass.

Something they sit on, and when they sit on it, they can't see it anymore.

[grasswire]

8. but now three telecoms are denying the story

I don't know what to make of that. Does it mean that Cauley is being "Rathered"? That would make possibly TWO of those episodes this week, with the Truthout-Rove fuss. What the hell is going on?

[Robbien]

9. If the story were false, would BushCo have sent in the thugs to try

and stop the lawsuit against the telecos? I think not.