16 October 2005

It's Miller Time


Judy Miller and the New York Times finally put their cards
on the table, here and here. It’s pretty anti-climactic, to
say the least. The money quotes:

Asked what she regretted about The Times's handling
of the matter, Jill Abramson, a managing editor, said:
"The entire thing."

...

Last week, [NYT publisher] Mr. Sulzberger said it was
impossible to know whether Ms. Miller could have
struck a deal a year earlier, as at least four other
journalists had done.

"Maybe a deal was possible earlier," Mr. Sulzberger
said. "And maybe, in retrospect, looking back, you
could say this was a moment you could have jumped
on. If so, shame on us. I tend to think not."


And Judy Miller writes:

On one page of my interview notes, for example, I
wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr.
Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came
from, when I wrote it or why the name was
misspelled.

I testified that I did not believe the name came from
Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not
appear in the same part of my notebook as the
interview notes from him.


So basically, she doesn’t remember who her source was.

As you might expect, Arianna isn’t buying it.
Read her comments, here.


UPDATE: Obviously the blogs will be chewing on these
articles for many days to come. If you're hungry for
more, check out the insightful analysis at The Left
Coaster
and Editor & Publisher.