Miller's twisted tale - UK Gardian

[Quixote1818]

Monday October 10, 2005
The Guardian


All the elements for a grand moral drama were in place. A defiant journalist, frail from months in jail, stood before the cameras on a courtroom's steps proclaiming her readiness to sacrifice herself in the name of press freedom.
Judith Miller had spent more time in prison than any American journalist in history for refusing to give up a source. The diminutive 57-year-old New York Times reporter had sat for 85 days in a Virginia penitentiary, sent there by a prosecutor investigating an intelligence leak that threatens the stability of the Bush White House. Yet when she emerged into the light of the day, only after satisfying herself her source wanted her to testify, the absence of acclaim was embarrassingly evident. Not only did the public not seem to care, most of Miller's fellow journalists ranged from sceptical to downright hostile. Journalism's Joan of Arc stood at the stake and a nation shrugged.

"Journalists and media people here are really distancing themselves from Judith Miller," said Michael Wolff, a media critic for Vanity Fair magazine. Miller's lawyers protested that this lack of solidarity undermined her stand against prosecutorial pressure. Whatever the reason, most legal observers agree that the whole case has done nothing for the cause of journalistic privilege in the US.

Reporters have no intrinsic right to keep their sources secret, under a ruling laid down by the Supreme Court in 1972, and that has not been threatened. In fact, Miller's stay in jail may have backfired if US prosecutors are now emboldened, by her eventual agreement to talk, to put more pressure on journalists to give up their sources.

Continued:

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1588717,00.html?gusrc=rss

[babsbunny]

1. So if Media and Journalists are distancing themselves

from Judith Miller, will she be fired from The New York Times? Her involvement in the lies that led up to this occupation, and the thousands of people dead should not be rewarded!

[texpatriot2004]

2. Glad that people are distancing themselves from Judy b/c

Judy Miller is NOT protecting journalists and freedom of the press.

[Disturbed]

3. Hypocrisy

Those in the Corp. Media that say she is a heroin for standing on the principle of Freedom of the Press are full of shit. They know damn well that she was protecting herself and her RW connections. She is an obvious shill for the Bush Admin., maybe even a traitor to America.

[hadrons]

4. Disturbed, I know its a spelling error, but you said it best

"...she is a heroin..."

[texpatriot2004]

6. I'd say she is all of it...especially the traitor part. n/t

[Garbo 2004]

5. Other writers, newsies have done time for contempt of court. Not sure

that Judy qualifies as the lone defender of the 1st amendment she's made out to be.

Judy: 85 days.

Vanessa Leggett, freelance writer, author: jailed for 168 days.

List: http://www.rcfp.org/jail.html

[texpatriot2004]

7. Wow. 168 days. n/t