
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
My friend, attorney and Phoenix contributor Harvey Silverglate has another view of the criticism of the Times's handling of the domestic spying story. Here's his passionate email:
Correct me if I'm not seeing this right. The New York Times has broken an incredibly important story -- a story that was obviously going to provoke another leak investigation, only this time a really serious leak investigation because the leaking of NSA secrets is far more serious than a two-bit hissy fight like Plamegate. The Times had to think long and hard before breaking this story, because even though I think that breaking this story is the highest form of patriotism, it was and is and will remain obvious that the administration will see breaking the story, and being a leaker for the story, to be an act of treason. So this is very serious stuff. There is a federal statute outlawing just about everything, including this kind of conduct. No wonder the Times hesitated to publish the story until it became obvious that the story would come out in Risen's book anyway. And so what is the reaction of the rest of the news media? Instead of lionizing the NYTimes for publishing a great, important, and gutsy story, at considerable risk to the paper (no less -- and probably considerably more -- risk, in my view, than the NYTimes, WashPost, and Boston Globe undertook in publishing the Pentagon Papers), the LA Times and other media outlets are ganging up on the Times, not because of what it published, not because of what it omitted at the administration's request, but because it published it late! This, at a time and under circumstances where the media should be sticking together, against the most lawless administration in my memory (far worse than Nixon). The news media are beginning to act like a herd of animals that eat their own. It's disgusting. Am I missing something? Hell, I'm beginning to like lawyers better than I like journalists, and that's saying a lot.
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