Joe Scott 3: The Body Politic

Alternative Newspapers Merger

24 October 2005 |permalink | email article

In an agreement to be announced today, The New York Times reports that the company that publishes The Village Voice and five other alternative newspapers in the country will be acquired by New Times Media, the largest publisher in the market.

The merger, rumored for some time, coincides with The Voiceís 50th anniversary this week, and raises a central question: can The Voice and its siblings, including the politically influential LA Weekly, retain their anti-establishment roots and outspoken liberal content? New Times has been deliberately apolitical and what some observers, including myself, consider too libertarian in viewpoint.

Central to the merger is the issue of editorial content. The LA Weekly, for example, has many serious political writers, notably Marc Cooper and Robert Greene. Will they and the staff retain the same freedom of independent reporting?

NYT reports that the most pressing issue raised by the deal is how it will play with anti-trust regulators, with whom the merger partners have already had one run-in. Regulatory scrutiny is crucial.

Rescuing Harriet Miers

23 October 2005 |permalink | email article

Harriet Miers is in the cram zone before the Nov. 7 start of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on her nomination to the Supreme Court. Courtesy calls aside, what matters is that shocked committee leaders have asked her to redo a questionnaire about her legal career ñ unheard of in the modern annals of the high court.

President Bush is steadfast that his White House counsel and adoring groupie ìis a competent, strong, capable woman who shares the same judicial philosophy that I share.î Despite W.ís self-styled infallibility, a serious split exists within the conservative movement if not among all mainstream Republicans.

The Wall Street Journalís editorial board wrote that well before the Senate hearings, Miers ìselection has become a political blunder of the first order.î

The Washington Postís Charles Babbington wrote her nomination has been so riddled with ìerrors, stumbles and embarrassing revelations that some lawmakers and other observers find hard to believe it emanates from the same White Houseî ñ an apparent inference about new Chief Justice John Robertsí smooth sailing through the confirmation process.

Sundayís WashPo column by starchy conservative George Will is very juicy rhetoric. ìSuch is the perfect perversity of the nomination of Harriet Miers that it discredits, and even degrades, all who toil to justify it.î

With perhaps Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a Judiciary Committee member and a former judge in mind, Will added, ìAs for Republicans, any who vote for Miers will thereafter be ineligible to argue that it is important to elect Republicans because they are conscious conservers of the judicial branchís invaluable dignity.î

A Friday post by John Dickerson, Slateís chief political correspondent (slate.com/id/2128303/) summarizes the problem faced by Miers. ìAt some point, Bushís refusal to scuttle Miersí nomination may turn into an act of cruelty.î

Forcing Miers to go forward ìincreases the chances that her admirable career as a private lawyer, trusted friend, and able public servant will be eclipsed by repeated calamities associated with trying to ram through her nomination.î Is she, as Dickerson seems to imply, a dead-woman walking?

Unmasking Judy Miller

22 October 2005 |permalink | email article

Bill Keller, the New York Timesí executive editor, sent an extraordinary memo to the staff late Friday afternoon about the Judy Miller scandal. It went beyond a mea culpa, acknowledging several mistakes on his part, explaining why reporting errors occurred and distancing himself from the paperís controversial reporter. (The memo, on Jim Romeneskoís site, is here.)

Miller spent two months in jail for refusing to reveal the identity of a confidential source to a federal grand jury investigating whether Karl Rove, Bushís brain, vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby and others may have broken the law by revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert C.I. A. agent. The issue is whether her cover was blown to punish her husband, ex-diplomat Joseph Wilson IV, an outspoken Bush critic on invading Iraq.

Until the special prosecutor came after her, Keller wrote, ìI didnít know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the Öwhisper campaignî against Joe Wilson, ìadding ìJudy seems to have misled Phil Taubman (the Washington bureau chief) about the extent of her involvement.î Further, Keller said, ìif I had known the details of Judyís entanglement with Libby, Iíd have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defenseÖ.î

Kellerís action came less than a week after Miller, under intense pressure to give a published personal account of her actions, did a superficial job and raising more questions about her discredited W.M.D. stories which followed the White House line. Connections with Libby and buying bogus stories planted by the infamous Ahmad Chalabi and others were not addressed. Like the Times, sheís been bitterly attacked by journalists, media critics and bloggers.

Last Thursday, Slateís Jack Shafer hit hard, writing that the scandal has ìsent the old gray palooka down to the mat once again, where we find it wheezing, bleeding, and struggling to find its feet.î He concluded, ìUnless the paper wants to hear Judith Millerís name yodeled with that of Walter Duranty on every occasion Times haters assemble, one last public exorcism must be conducted to drive out the demons forever.î

(The Timesí Duranty won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Soviet Union under Stalin. His fawning stories underreported the famine and, while the paper has acknowledged his failures since the 1980s, the Pulitzer Board has twice declined to withdraw the award.)

Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Timesí observant media columnist, wrote that Keller took the focus off the Times as a media institution and ìput it squarely where it belongs: on Miller, the individual journalist.î He added, ìMiller, the reporter, represents something far more persistent and pernicious in American journalism. Sheís virtually an exemplar of an all-too-common variety of Washington reporter: ambitious, self-interested, unscrupulous and intoxicated by the proximity of power.”

In her Saturday column, the deliciously irreverent Maureen Dowd conducted her own exorcism, writing ìIíve always liked Judy Miller,î before damning her with faint praise.

Miller has said she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, ìhoping to cover the same thing Iíve always covered ñ threats to our country.î Dowd tartly opined if that were to happen, ìthe institution most in danger would be the newspaper you hold in your hand.î

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the inscrutable Special Prosecutor, is expected to decide this week whether anyone will be charged with a crime in the C.I.A. leak investigation.