Journalism's lone Wolf(ves)

A must read from Monday's Miami Herald is Edward Wasserman's media column, "The vanishing art of standing firm."

Wasserman, the Knight professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, contrasts the lone ranger efforts of unknown independent journalists such as Vanessa Leggett and Josh Wolf at protecting the principle of the First Amendment with the marquee "singing journalists" who testified at the Scooter Libby trial. The latter were quick to tell Frontline all about the need to protect the principle, but here are two people who have done time -- walked the walk if you will.

Wolf, 24, has been behind bars nearly six months, said to be longer than any other journalist in U.S. history. The previous record was held by another journalist you never heard of, Vanessa Leggett, who spent 168 days in federal lockup in 2001 for refusing to turn over notes for a book about a murder in Texas.

Maybe it's a cheap shot, but the contrast is irresistible between their dogged refusal to talk and the glamorous parade of marquee journalists that queued up in Washington to testify at the trial of Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Cheney's ex-chief of staff.

And later

What happened is that these journalistic heavyweights -- and their employers -- just didn't have the stomach for a fight.

Meanwhile, bantam-weight blogger Josh Wolf languishes in jail to protect some ordinary people and a principle: That reporters have to be able to assure people that they're independent, that they'll stand up to bullying, that they won't be dragooned as helpmates to police, prosecutors or grand juries.

The cruelest irony is that Wolf's tormentors deny he's a journalist at all. To me, if he's independently gathering publicly significant information for the purpose of making it widely known, he's a journalist.

The question is what we call the songbirds at the Libby trial.

More on Libby trial and journalists

Yesterday, Lucy Daglish of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press was on Washington Post online discussing the Libby Trial impact on journalism. Here's the transcript of that discussion.

She gives props (sort of) to MBA bloggers covering the trial in response to a question about why traditional media was not live-blogging the trial. Answer: because MBA was. That bodes well for MBA's credibility in covering such events in the future.

But the overall tone of her responses is still chummy—I know these people, they work very hard, their very competitive and busy, blah, blah, blah.

That was in no way as interesting as last night's brilliant Frontline program "News War." It was only part one of four, but the initial installment provided a comprehensive road map for how the media helped us to get where we are today. My boys were watching and asked the billion-dollar question: "So why did we go to war with Iraq?" That was followed by: "How do we get out?"

Part Two will be broadcast at 9 next Tuesday on PBS.

Did journalism let the public down?

UPDATE: Check out this column in Nieman Watchdog. Former DeMoines Register editorial page editor Gilbert Cranberg asks a series of questions about press failures in pre-war coverage. As I read through the list of questions it became clear that the ones who really failed the public were the editors who determined story placement, didn't push reporters for alternate sources, didn't properly question claims and allowed themselves to succumb to either some bizarre sense of patriotism or, worse, pressure from big-media owners. Cranberg says the public deserves "an independent and thorough inquiry of pre-war press coverage." And NOT by the press.

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but revelations about big journalism and the Bush Administration keep getting curiouser and curioser. We are seeing this exposed in all its seemliness thanks to Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Consider the chain of events: President Bush made the case for a preemptive attack (remember shuddering at those two words?) against Iraq using 16 words from his 2003 State of the Union speech:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

With that, we were off to war. He convinced former Secretary of State Colin Powell to make the case before the United Nations and sent then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice to Judith Miller talking about mushroom clouds. We were going to “shock and awe.” Remember all that?

One individual dared to expose himself to ridicule, humiliation, political suicide and professional suicide to tell the Bush Administration it was wrong, that it’s reasoning was based on faulty intelligence. When he couldn’t get an audience with them, he took it to the New York Times and the public. He paid the price, but so did his wife, who was outed as a CIA agent.

Reporters knew who she was because administration officials told them. They had to understand on some level that this was retaliation against someone who dared to speak out against the war.

Reporters cried “stop the leak” loud enough to get investigators interested. But when the investigators turned to them and said, "Tell us what you know, the only evidence of the crime is in conversations with reporters," they shouted back reporters’ privilege. "Wait a minute! We don’t want to get to the bottom of this if we have to tell you what we know."

Big journalism was talking out of both sides of its collective mouth. Did reporters and editors stop for a minute to ask a key question: Is the public better off knowing or not knowing? Is it better that the public know a key White House official leaked the information, or that the Office of the Vice President may have been masterminding the effort?

When the investigation put them in a tough spot, they repeatedly downplayed its significance, making it sound as if it were a meaningless episode, one of many that occurs hourly in national politics and government. They went on “Larry King” and “Hardball” and “Meet the Press” and talked about its relative insignificance and how any charges Fitzgerald made would be minor, unable to dent this administration.

Bob Woodward actually squirmed on Larry King the night before the indictment while pontificating on the leaker. We later learned he had known the leaker's identity all along because he was told. Talk about duplicitous. Tell Larry you can’t make it if you have to, but don’t sit there and lie on CNN!

Was Woodward protecting his source for his upcoming book, “State of Denial”? Or was he protecting himself? He did more to damage his journalistic credibility with that appearance and his attempt to snow his editors than anything else he’s done in his career.

Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail protecting Libby, but could it be, as Don Zachary, a media lawyer with Fox Spillane says, more an attempt to “atone for the sins” of faulty reporting on the weapons of mass destruction issue? After all, Libby claims he waived his confidentiality long before her 85 days were up.

In big journalism’s efforts to challenge subpoenas and avoid damage to reporter/source relationships (to protect its own interests), an investigation that could have resulted in an indictment in October 2004 — let’s say that again, in October 2004 — was now delayed another year to October 2005.

This trial has exposed more about the cozy nature of reporters and governmental officials. Maybe the public isn’t paying attention and maybe they don’t care about the nature of the relationship between government and journalism. But they should care, because journalism let them down. The ability to weigh the pros and cons of a preemptive attack, the consequences of launching the war, an exit strategy, the stress it would place on the military as it wages a global War on Terror. These things were not sufficiently debated at the time. We were like bobble heads as the administration made the case. "Shock and awe! Yeah, shock and awe!"

I’m not saying this was a deliberate effort to pander to the government, but I am saying that if reporters and their editors had stopped long enough to ask themselves the hard questions about their own motivations, the administrations assumptions; if they had pushed their sourcing beyond the usual suspects, had spent more time following events where they were happening and less inside the Beltway; and had honestly challenged and investigated source claims, then events may have turned out differently.

If the reporters had agreed to limit the scope of their grand jury testimony earlier and we had an indictment in October 2004, before the Presidential election, where would be today?

I think that’s a fair question and I think reporters who cover government need to think about whom they are protecting? Are they protecting a government source or are they serving the public’s right to know?

Because from what I’ve seen through this trial, the administration believed it could master and manipulate journalists. Whether that is in fact the case is not the issue, it’s the perception that they are puppets of the administration and White House stenographers that is most damaging.

There are always exceptions to the rule. The Washington Post’s Dana Priest has done some time-consuming, meticulous and downright courageous reporting on national security. The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh is another example of someone consistently and courageously challenging the administration's claims. Now that President Bush's popularity has declined, journalism has again grown a set of balls, pushing this Administration for proof and details on the troop escalation and shift (if there is one) in strategy.

But is it too late? We are sitting here with a President who doesn’t really know how to get us out of the “preemptive” war he started. With only two years left in his term, it’s safe to believe that he has passed that burden on to the next guy—or gal.

Watergate was exposed by two young journalists who capitalized on the collective malaise of a Washington Press Corps that had largely fallen down on the job because of stonewalling from a paranoid administration. Hmmm, sounds familiar, eh? Let’s hope journalism learns from this and doesn't have a relapse. Because if it doesn't serve the public and ask the hard questions and hold government's feet to the fire, there are plenty of citizen journalists willing to do the work for them.

Libby trial roundup

As the second week of the Scooter Libby trial concludes we're left to ponder what this trial is reveals about Washington politics and those who cover it. David Ignatius from the Washington Post takes us back to summer 2003:

Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA's reporting on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb? That's the big question that runs through the many little details that have emerged in the perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The trial record suggests a simple answer: The White House was worried that the CIA would reveal that it had been pressured in 2002 and early 2003 to support administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that in the Niger case, the CIA had tried hard to resist this pressure. The machinations of Cheney, Libby and others were an attempt to weave an alternative narrative that blamed the
CIA.

His conclusion:

The bottom line? (CIA's Iraq mission manager Robert) Grenier was asked in court last week to explain the White House's 2003 machinations. Here's what he said: "I think they were trying to avoid blame for not providing [the truth] about whether or not Iraq had attempted to buy uranium." Let me say it again: This trial is about a cover-up that failed.

(Bold is mine.)

NBC's Brian Williams explains the difficulty in covering one of their own:

While we can't change the fact that some of our own people have been mentioned in (and are essential to) the Libby case, we're currently going over how to cover, for example, Tim Russert's day on the stand. We are trying to avoid having a correspondent who reports TO Tim... have to report ON Tim. As you know, Tim's been unable to discuss the case with us on the air, in order to avoid influencing the outcome. There are several ways to remedy any coverage problems, and our aim is to cover it straight as we've tried to do throughout the trial thus far. We'll keep you posted on what we decide, and you'll of course see the coverage when it airs.

How does Judith Miller escape this week? Here's Booman Tribune's take:

It's a cruel irony for Judy that all the thanks she gets for obstructing this investigation for over a year is to be destroyed by the people she set out to protect. I love it.

Let this be a lesson to anyone that does business with the Bush administration. I don't care if you are Karzai, Maliki, Lieberman, or Judy Miller...there is no profit in it. They will destroy your reputation quicker than you can say Colin Powell or George Tenet.

Hat tip to The Hindsight Factor.

We'll leave the last word on the Libby trial this week to Nicholas Lemann writing in The New Yorker:

The Libby trial reveals a White House that thought its problems were with people who could not be counted on to confirm its suspicions, like Ambassador Wilson. It should have worried less about those who would speak truth to power, and worried more that power is no longer trusted to speak truth.

Hat tip to Ernie the Attorney

Journalism takes a 1-2 punch

Ouch! Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time reporter Matthew Cooper did little to further the professional stature of journalism yesterday with their testimony at the Scooter Libby trial.

Rory O'Connor, blogging for MBA writes of the defense picking apart Cooper's note-taking skills:

Jeffress continues to pick at Cooper’s sloppy notes and typos in an attempt to cast doubt on what his recollection says they mean. What exactly did Libby say to him? It’s pretty tough to say by examining the notes. We’ll have to decide whether to believe Cooper’s “recollection” is accurate — or not.

And later in that same post, he continues but also reminds us that Cooper's shorthand notwithstanding, this is still far from a knockout for the defense:

By hammering on Cooper’s incomplete, typo-ridden, reporter’s shorthanded notes, the defense is attempting to cast doubt on his contention that Libby told him anything about Valerie Plame or her CIA connection. Cooper can’t explain the gaps in his notes and emails, but adheres to his contention that his recollection of what Libby said to him is accurate.

Over at BTC News there's this roundup of the day's impact on media:

On the press watching front, the primary lessons of today’s action are that Matt Cooper and Judy Miller really need to brush up on their note-taking skills, and people who talk to Cooper and Miller should probably take their own contemporaneous notes in order to ensure that what gets printed bears some resemblance to what was said.

On the entertainment front, the big news is that according to Cheney advisor Mary Matalin, Russert, who will be testifying next week, hates Hardball host Chris Matthews, who was causing serious heartburn in the vice president’s office during the period in question. Matalin suggested Libby call Russert to complain about Matthews; Libby did so, and that conversation is the one during which Libby says he learned (or relearned, or re-relearned …) from Russert that Wilson was a CIA officer.

I'm not sure why typo-ridden notes are a problem. It's not as if it gets into print that way. I'd venture to say that most journalists have their own form of shorthand, which could prove problematic in the reporting process. But it's why we end every conversation with, "If I have any other questions or need some clarification, can I give you call?"

The politics of journalist subpoenas

Is the current subpoena-happy climate for journalism a cyclical phenomenon? Is it a result of the political climate? Is it rooted in ideology? Is it driven by the events of the War in Iraq or the War on Terror? Is it a combination of all of the above?

This seed was first planted last summer in an interview with Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter Dana Priest. When describing how journalism is under attack (and how until recently the public was willing to go along), she said:

"I think it’s event driven and is led by 9-11 and how we think of ourselves in light of 9-11. Our job might be hard, but it’s so critically important right now. The stakes are huge of what we’re doing and how we’re moving forward and away from 9-11. I don’t know who else is going to help people through that—in terms of figuring out what’s still right and wrong and what we really want to do about really hard questions. Some of the answers get us nowhere near where we want to be. Unfortunately, most of those issues are wrapped in secrecy right now."

Her own prize-winning reporting about the CIA black prisons was attacked by the Bush Administration, although no one ever claimed that what she reported was wrong. And yet in the back of her mind rests the notion that she may be subpoenaed to testify about her story, which was exclusively sourced by confidential sources. I asked her if she was worried about being subpoenaed.

"I get asked that a lot. There are so many things to worry about, why worry about things you can’t control? I do think about it though. I guess a shield law would help, but there’s not really a legislative remedy for this. All government wants to control information. During the war in Kosovo, someone decided not to reveal how many cruise missiles were launched the first night. When it was learned there were civilian casualties, Pentagon officials were finally forced to talk about “accidents.”

The difference in this government is that there is a freeze on real dialogue between professionals – me and them inside – it’s like they don’t understand dialogue in public is fundamental to building consensus even if it means getting jabbed when you go in the wrong direction. There’s a difference between trying to control information and retaliating when you can’t."

"When you start talking war, you start talking about a different political climate (for covering government) that infects proceedings like that involving Scooter Libby,"says Donald Zachary, attorney practicing media law with the LA-firm Fox Spillane Schaefer.

He may be charged with perjury and obstruction, but at its core, Scooter Libby's trial is about controlling information and the ensuing retaliation and cover-up that occurred when a maverick decided he and the information he possessed would not be "controlled" by the administration.

The impact testifying has on journalism

John Dickerson is in the courtroom covering the trial for Slate when suddenly his name is mentioned from the witness in the box (Ari Fleischer) and his visage projected across the big screen in the courtroom.

His name is on the potential witness list. What does he do now? Should he recuse himself from covering the trial? His name is mentioned in connection to his work with Time magazine. Does it matter that he's at a different news organization now?

While bloggers, journalists and news junkies ponder some of these big-picture questions, the public seems to care little for the big and little aspects of the Scooter Libby trial. Here in Cleveland, the trial hasn't warranted coverage before A4 and today's AP story about former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer's testimony yesterday trickled down the gutter. Though I'm certain Vice President Dick Cheney's testimony would warrant front-page coverage.

Regardless of how it's playing in the heartland, this is a huge story in Washington where the compulsion to know something before anyone else drives all else. Outside the Beltway it seems to have less significance.

"You would have to talk to 30 people to find one who knows who Scooter Libby is," says Lincoln D. Bandlow, an media law attorney with Fox Spillane Shaeffer in Los Angeles and a visiting professor at USC's Annenberg School of Journalism. (In LA yesterday, the top story was the Screen Actor's Guild Awards.) "If there hadn’t been a shift in Congress in November, I think the Democrats would be trying to get more weight out of the story. As it is, the Bush Administration has been sufficiently spanked by voters," he said.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified today, the first of the many reporters potentially being called. While journalists have testified at trials before, Thomas McPhail, professor of media studies at University of Missouri - St. Louis makes the distinction that such testimony has not occurred in a high-profile federal case in which the sitting vice president is a witness.

How does this impact the credibility of journalists and the organizations for which they work?

Miller's credibility as a journalist has already been skewered. "She is seen as a stenographer for the White House," says McPhail. "She was doing Libby’s bidding in terms of covering the run-up to the war in Iraq. She was making the White House case (for weapons of mass destruction) without telling readers that she got all that information from White House. She mislead the public." The implications for such faulty reporting are also huge for her paper. "The New York Times is an agenda setter," he said. What it covers has ripple affect on other news organizations since her faulty reporting was picked up by papers across the country.

Miller's testimony, which doesn't seem to draw as much fervor considering she is the only reporter who spent time in jail (85 days) protecting the identity of Libby, is overshadowed by the upcoming testimony of Tim Russert of "Meet the Press." Libby contends that it was Russert who told him of Plame's identity. Russert denies this.

McPhail explains: "Russert is the gold standard of television news and political commentary. When he is on the witness stand and under cross examination, he will divulge how close he was to various key White House people. We've heard how the vice president was writing media notes; God forbid Russert was actually using them."

There's also a great deal of concern in the journalism industry about how this trial will impact the reporter/source relationship, particularly for the Washington Press Corps. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and his predecessor John Ashcroft have repeatedly shown they are ready to throw journalists into jail if they don't get the information they want, and they do so with little regard for the First Amendment.

While some trumpet the merits of a Federal Shield Law, it's doubtful that such a law would help in this case. Bandlow says it's difficult terrain for applying reporters privilege because it's a battle between the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment (specifically to compel witnesses to testify on his or her behalf).

"If experience is any judge, media will always aggressively fight back on revealing source issues," says Bandlow. "But it will be difficult to win because this paradigm situation is when reporters privilege is undermined. The First and Sixth amendment issues conflict. This is different then when a prosecutor is asking for information to build a case. A defendant says, 'If I don’t get this information, I’m going to jail.'Which takes precedence?"

Bandlow doesn't believe a Federal Shield Law would help much because it's not enough to trump a constitutional amendment right. "The shield law’s applicability would be doubtful under the case of criminal defendant's right to defend himself," he said.

If we go back to the beginnings of this incident, we find journalists who were calling vociferously for an investigation into who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak (His original column is no longer available. This is Slate's Jack Shafer's take.)

"Members of the media did not think all the way through this issue," says Bandlow. "The media attitude was, 'We want to get to bottom of who leaked this in order destroy the reputation of an administration critic. But if that means revealing confidential sources, we’re not willing to get to bottom of it.' "

The crime itself was only evidenced by conversations with reporters. The only way to get to the bottom of it was to go to the reporters, says Bandlow.

"Media's big pitch always is and should be the public has a right to know. At the same time, they turn around and say, 'I’m not gonna tell you about this.' It looks suspect because they are talking out of both sides of their mouth," he says.

McPhail sees several things coming out of this trial as a result of journalists' testimony. "I tend to think that it’s going to expose some of the journalists who have an all-too-cozy relationship with their sources," he says, calling into question the claim of objectivity and neutrality paramount to western journalism.

But he says the case could ultimately help journalism because it has exposed and provided a case study on how preoccupied the White House was—and is—with media coverage. That the vice president spends his days trying to come up with talking points to counter what's being reported seems a bit paranoid.

"This testimony gives us evidence that the media is important to this administration and that although (President) Bush claims not to read the news, that (Karl) Rove and (Dick) Cheney do almost to the exclusion of other issues they should be dealing with," says McPhail.

Trial exposes Washington journalism

How will journalism emerge from the Scooter Libby Trial? It remains to be seen, but here are some early snippets that don't bode well.

Dana Millbank of the Washington Post reports from former Cheney communications director Cathie Martin's testimony just how the Office of the Vice President sought to control its message. Whether or not Russert thinks he's being controlled, the perception in the White House is that he can be. That's strike one for his credibility.

Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.

This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took the stand in the perjury trial of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Flashed on the courtroom computer screens were her notes from 2004 about how Cheney could respond to allegations that the Bush administration had played fast and loose with evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Option 1: "MTP-VP," she wrote, then listed the pros and cons of a vice presidential appearance on the Sunday show. Under "pro," she wrote: "control message."

"I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used," Martin testified. "It's our best format."

And then there's this from BTC News that I'll explore in more detail in follow up post this morning.

There may in fact have been not a single Washington reporter who didn’t know more or less who leaked what, and when, and why, at least a year before their readers did.

In the meantime they reported statements from the administration that they knew to be false. The most notable of those involve Fleischer’s successor, Scott McClellan, and his carefully worded self-exculpatory assurances that no one in the White House was responsible for the leak — and specifically Rove, Libby and Elliot Abrams, the national security advisor who was pardoned by the elder Bush after his conviction on charges of lying to Congress in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal — but even the most cursory review of stories on the case during the period between the beginning of the investigation and the indictment of Libby will turn up a host of others.

And of course there remains much that reporters know and we don’t. If the Cooper to Dickerson to Viveca Novak relay of Rove’s involvement is any guide, a whole bunch of reporters know which senior administration official blew the whistle to the Post’s Mike Allen and Dana Priest on the two “top White House officials” who leaked Wilson’s identity to a half-dozen journalists before her name was revealed in print. The Allen-Priest story motivated Fleischer to seek immunity from Fitzgerald, which is how Dickerson’s face wound up on a big screen monitor at the trial today.

Confidential sources can play an important role in reporting. Very few press watchers would advocate doing away with them. But reporters should not allow confidentiality to force them into reporting lies. Reporters who find themselves in that position should recuse themselves from writing those stories. In this case that apparently might have precluded most of the Washington press corps from covering the leak.

What do journalists know? When do they know it? How do they know it? When do they report it? Are they obligated to report it when they know it? If not, whose interest are they serving? All legitimate questions to be asked.

Wells claims journalists have faulty memory

Slate's John Dickerson comments on how Libby defense attorney Ted Wells plans to portray some journalists testifying in the trial:

"He was most effective picking apart the three reporters whose recollections contradict Libby's. He suggested that Tim Russert had the faulty memory. The host of Meet the Press says he didn't tell Libby about Wilson's wife because he didn't know about her status as a CIA employee, but Wells argued that Russert may have been in a position to have known. David Gregory, the NBC White House reporter who works with Russert, had been told by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Wells argued that Gregory or his colleague Andrea Mitchell, who also claimed to know, would have passed this information on to Russert before he had his conversation with Libby.

"Wells pointed out that Matt Cooper, my former Time colleague, had extensive notes about his interview with Karl Rove, who passed along the information about Wilson's wife, but had no record of Libby's secondary role in confirming that information. To discredit Judith Miller, Wells relied on the former New York Times reporter's own testimony, in which she repeatedly referred to her bad memory, tendency to conflate events, and fuzziness about details."

The question looming over this for journalists is how their testimony will affect their credibility as reporters. One could argue that Judith Miller's credibility as a journalist was toast long before the indictment came down. What is most disconcerting, especially if you were one of her editors at the New York Times is this statement: "Wells relied on the former New York Times reporter's own testimony, in which she repeatedly referred to her bad memory, tendency to conflate events, and fuzziness about details."

On another note, one of Libby's boyhood chums penned this piece for Salon. It's a bit gushing and well-timed to make him seem more human, more vulnerable. At one point, author Nick Bromell likens Libby and the tragedy he now faces to that of Isabel Archer in Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady."

But it was hard not to pause at this remark:

"Always the model student without a single demerit to blot his report card, he suddenly finds himself an accused felon. While the men who benefited from his desire to serve them are still at their desks and phones across the Potomac River, Scooter is looking in the mirror, knotting his tie, and preparing himself for another day in court. It's understandable that he would regard himself as a victim of his superiors. He is one. But it's also telling that the villain his lawyers point toward is Karl Rove, not the master himself, Dick Cheney. Betrayed or not, Scooter's loyalty endures."

Citizen media goes mainstream

There's been a lot of talk in the traditional media about bloggers getting credentials to cover the Scooter Libby case. Some of that coverage has been overly defensive (no surprise there), just look at Miles O'Brien's drippingly defensive report from last Friday's CNN This Morning.

It strikes me as I look down the potential witness list (which includes the names of 26 journalists from news organizations including The Washington Post, New York Times, Time Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, NBC News, Wall Street Journal, CBS News, MSNBC News, Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday and Newsweek) that this is independent media's story.

The major news organizations are so enmeshed in the story, having become a party to the proceedings, that this is an opportunity for citizen media to fill in the role of news reporters in addition to commentators. The powers that be in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., were smart to invite citizens into the proceedings to witness firsthand rather than comment on what the mainstream is reporting. We'll be watching to see how the coverage unfolds.

So far, I see a great deal of care being taken on the part of the MBA bloggers. Let's hope this experiment proves successful and opens the doors to other institutions.

Fitzgerald opens the Libby trial

The Libby Trial is underway and Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has set the tone for the proceedings. The backdrop of this case is the build up to the Iraq War. Click here for a good look at how 16 words uttered during President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address set this chain of events in motion.

OTB and Libby trial

James Joyner has a brief piece on the larger ramifications of the Libby trial. More to come here on this subject as the trial proceeds.

A problem with TV coverage

Bob Cox reports on the problem with television's attempted coverage at something like the Scooter Libby Trial. Maybe the public doesn't want to see how the sausage is made in TV news, but this is an example of how events at a lengthy, often tiresome proceeding can be pushed out of context by those attempting to capture only a snippet of the event.

It isn't sexy sitting in a trial day after day, hour after hour. In fact, much of the time is spent trying to stay sufficiently caffeinated and interested in the event. But the thing about trials is, you never really know when the bomb will drop or the revelation be made or the smoking gun be uncovered. It requires time — some of it fruitful, some not — that most news organizations now find themselves hard-pressed to give up.

Libby, Miller and journalism

My interest in the Scooter Libby trial is in its implications for journalists. In October 2005, I had an exclusive interview with former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Here's that article from Quill magazine.

Standing target
In a candid conversation with Quill, Judith Miller discusses her case, answers questions about her future and offers advice for other journalists.

By Wendy A. Hoke

After weeks of laser attacks by mainstream media and the blogosphere, embattled former New York Times reporter Judith Miller braved her second public appearance since being released from jail. She spoke out in favor of a federal shield law at the 2005 SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference in Las Vegas.

During an exclusive interview with Quill following her Oct. 18 speech, Miller said she has no regrets about going to jail to protect a source. But the time since she’s been released has been “as, if not more, stressful” than spending 85 days in jail.

Her motives and methods have been called into question, and her very presence at the convention made her and SPJ a lightning rod for publicity, even capturing the lead item in the local gossip column.

“Event organizers confirmed they were adding security after Internet bloggers urged people to protest (Miller’s) appearance at the Aladdin-based convention, where she is receiving the First Amendment Award from the SPJ for going to jail to protect a source,” wrote Norm Clarke, of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, himself a keynote speaker at the convention.

But in her speech to a ballroom full of journalists and in the private interview that followed, she made it clear that she valued strongly the First Amendment Award. Before sitting down to talk about her case, she asked that the award be sent directly to her home to reside next to her Pulitzer Prize.

“Without whining, it has not been easy,” she said, particularly of being released after 85 days in the Alexandria Detention Center.

“(The press reaction) strikes me as being a little unfair to the Times, to me and to journalism. This has been very hard on my family,” she said.

So how does she maintain perspective in the face of such attacks?

“You remember that you did what you did for principle. You remember it again and again. You remember it when you read horrific gossip about yourself, your family and your colleagues and your friends. You remember that it’s not about you or your institution. You remember that what you do as a journalist is to inform the public, and you’re going to take some hits. That’s life,” she said.

Miller indicated she is eager to turn the spotlight away from her and onto the larger issue of enacting a federal shield law. The proposed law would protect journalists from being compelled to reveal sources except in the extreme cases of imminent national security threats. Miller testified on behalf of the law before the Senate Judiciary Committee the day after her speech to SPJ.

“I’m here because I hope you will agree that an uncoerced, uncoerceable press, though at times irritating, is vital to the perpetuation of freedom and democracy we so often take for granted,” she said in her testimony, which was published on the Senate Web site.

Before she made that appearance, an unusual move for a Times reporter, Miller openly worried about how the media reaction to her decision to testify before the federal grand jury after getting a personal and voluntary waiver from her source, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, would affect the 20 other journalists facing federal subpoenas to testify.

“I do worry about the impact on people not now protected by a shield law who may soon have to wrestle with the decisions that I did. Because if you know you’re going to spend 85 days in jail and still come out and be savagely attacked by some who claim to be journalists, some people may not want to take the risks or make the stand. I don’t blame them,” she said.

Journalists don’t get to choose when is a good time to make a stand on principle, Miller said. Admittedly, her case was not perfect, and the confusion and unanswered questions have infuriated some of her Times colleagues, who have since lashed out publicly.

For now she is planning to take some time to process the ordeal.

“I want to apologize to my family and friends. I made the stand on principle, and I just expected them to stand with me. They did, and it’s been very hard on them. I owe them time and attention right now,” she said.

She is hopeful that her case provides an opportunity to galvanize support for the passage of a federal shield law.

But there are questions that remain unanswered, and for the time being Miller and The New York Times will remain a journalistic target.

Asked if she felt she was used by her source, regardless of never having written a story identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, Miller said, “journalism is all about being used and using people.

“It’s about getting information out. Of course people want to spin. It is not a headline that the White House attempts to spin reporters. We see it every day. The danger of my case is we could be seeing the criminalization of political discourse in America,” she said.

And if the U.S. Department of Justice begins to move against people who talk to reporters, the result is a chilling affect on that discourse and, ultimately, the inability to serve the public well.

Miller stopped talking for a moment and then explained why she thinks she has become such a magnet for controversy.

“My case has been confused with the broader debate over the war in Iraq and over the Bush Administration,” she said. “Some people are so against the war and against this administration for bringing us into this war, that they care more about “punishing” the officials who led us into this war than about protecting the First Amendment.”

She denied being a funnel for the Bush Administration’s policies. “I would feel the same way about protecting a source in the Bush Administration or the Clinton Administration or any administration as long as he or she was a good-faith source,” she said.

Miller used the term “good-faith source” in her own account that ran in the Oct. 16 edition of The New York Times. During her speech, she defined a good-faith source as a person who relays what she believes to be an accurate version of events.

“Because the furor over my WMD reporting has been confused with an important principle at stake, the principle (of protecting confidential sources) is at risk,” she said.

“People can be angry at me, but I did not take this country to war. President Bush took this country to war. I will stand up for the principle that enables other reporters and me, hopefully, to bring Americans the information that next time may prevent a war. We can’t do that if people are so enraged that they are willing to sacrifice the First Amendment for a partisan goal,” she said.

Miller is hopeful that when people calm down they will begin to see what’s at stake.

She offered some lessons learned that she wanted to share with other journalists, particularly students.

“Learn a lot more about the law and your legal obligations as a journalist. I hadn’t paid very close attention, and I’m very sorry I didn’t. When you’re involved in sensitive national security reporting, it’s increasingly clear that we need to know more about how to protect ourselves,” she said.

And it’s not up to lawyers alone.

She also advised journalists to think hard about the reporter/source relationship.

“What do you do when a source lies to you? I know what I do. I cut him or her off. I confront them and tell them they actively mislead me,” she said, adding there’s a difference between a source being wrong and lying.

“Scooter Libby had been a good-faith source, and I had never found out that he had lied to me. I may find that out with the special prosecutor, but I did what I did to protect him because I believed him,” she said.

Her final advice was to think about your notes —- how long you keep them and how detailed they are.

“We like to think we will write a great journalistic memoir one day, which is why we keep our notes. But the risks, the danger to our sources may be so great, absent a shield law, that we no longer have that luxury. The world may have to limp along without our great memoirs,” she said, laughing.

Despite the beating she’s taken, Miller said she welcomed the blogosphere and felt it makes an enormous contribution. But her anger flared when the subject turned to the rumors about her case and her motives.

“Shame on the mainstream media if it fails to distinguish between gossip and news and if it carries gossip masquerading as news. That’s what happens all too often, and that’s what happened in this case, and yes, I’m angry,” she said.

“I welcome any blogger who subjects him or herself to the standards of mainstream media news –- get comment, try and be fair, distinguish editorial opinion from factually based reporting, and when you make a mistake, write a correction,” she said.

Miller wouldn’t speculate on whether or not there was any wrongdoing on the part of the Bush Administration in the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity. But she sighed heavily when asked if this all comes to nothing.

“We will soon learn what the government believes. Whether or not it can prove its case is a separate matter,” she said.

Wendy A. Hoke is a freelance writer based in Cleveland.

© Copyright 2005 Wendy A. Hoke

Covering the Libby Trial

I've just learned that I'll be contributing to the Media Bloggers Association RSS feed. Here's my official description:

Wendy Hoke will provide analysis and commentary on the implications of the Libby Trial on journalism - journalistic credibility, public perception of journalists, implications for a possible federal shield law and other statutory journalistic protections.

There's a pool of MBA bloggers sharing two credentials for coverage of the trial in Washington, D.C. MBA President Bob Cox is in DC now covering voir dire and lays out the judge's groundrules for bloggers here.

MSNBC Fact File has some good background on the players involved. Libby is on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to investigators inquiring about the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

My interest in the case is that 26 journalists are on the potential witness list. This also has been one of the cases in which proponents declare the need for a federal shield law.

The trial is off today with voir dire resuming on Monday. Opening arguments are scheduled to begin on Tuesday though from the sounds of things, seating a jury may go into midweek.