Pussies at the
New York Times

Reading this article from the New York Observer, it seems apparent that the reasons for the massive failure of the NYT to accurately report on the runup to the Iraq war, while many, can be boiled down to a few over-arching dilemmas.

First, the Times was under a lot of government and right wing journalistic pressure for their anti-administration line of reports during summer 2002. They became increasingly worried of being shut-off from access to high level government officials who provide the butter for the reporters bread. With realization that this fear may become true – they caved.

Second, then executive editor, Howell Raines had been insistent with staffers that they get “A.K.T” - an acronym meaning “all known thought”. Essentially, this enabled an opening of the floodgates – information poured into the paper for publication. The information was not properly vetted or investigated – just reported. This type of situation is ripe for a reporter “with sharp elbows” like Judy Miller to be positioned at the forefront of the publishing line. In other words, they were not performing journalism.

Third, the editors at the Times were intellectually lazy - “If anything, people were scared by her (Judy Miller's) stories,” a senior Times editor said. “They were complicated, and they dealt with this material that no one understood. They became controversial fast. The idea they just appeared in the paper is absurd. But maybe they didn’t get edited as well they should have.” This statement is an amazing abdication of responsibility.

As stated before on The Human Stain – the Times has blood on it's hands.
Posted on The Human Stain