The Larger Truth
by digby
ReddHedd at firedoglake highlights this passage in the WaPo story about the NY Times’ NSA story:
The paper offered no explanation to its readers about what had changed in the past year to warrant publication. It also did not disclose that the information is included in a forthcoming book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” written by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday’s story. The book will be published in mid-January, according to its publisher, Simon & Schuster.
It was the following that I found truly interesting however:
The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times’ Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story’s path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.
As it happens, this very same thing happened a few months ago — at the Washington Post. Only the reporter wasn’t lobbying to report the news. In fact, he tried very hard to persuade his editor to hold back the news until his book came out.
Guess who:
Downie was insistent that the paper be adequately prepared for the death of Deep Throat — whoever he was. During the past year he’d pressed Woodward to tell him the name, arguing that the current editor should know the identity of our source. Woodward had resisted.
[…]
In March Bradlee told Woodward that Downie was right; the time had come to tell the current post editor who Deep Throat was; then appropriate plans could be made to cover Felt’s death. Woodward, an assistant managing editor at the paper, consented uneasily.
[…]
Woodward told Downie that the book should come out several weeks after Felt’s death, and that the Post could run a pre-publication excerpt and break the news at that time.
In retrospect it was a ridiculously haphazard plan, given the excitement that would inevitably and imediately follow Felt’s death without a confirmation or denial from Woodward and myself. Too much speculation was already focused on Felt.
[…]
[Downie] was adamant that the Post make the disclosure immediately after receiving the news of Felt’s death. First of all, it might leak, and he didn’t want to get scooped. Second, now that he knew Deep Throat’s identity for certain, he could not foresee allowing an obituary of Felt to appear in the Post that did not include this rather vital news. The Post, Woodward, Bradlee, myself — and now Downie — would be criticized severely if Felt’s identity as Deep Throat was withheld for more than a few hours after he died.
Among other considerations, it would appear that the delay was related to a commercial proposition — the marketing of a book — and Downie declared that he would have no part in that. He would not hold news, “and this would be news,” he said. Period. Frankly, he said, he could not comprehend how Woodward could consider any delay. “You have always said that the identity of Deep Throat would be disclosed upon his death,” he said, implying strongly, and perhaps in this instance correctly, that Woodward was losing touch with the daily flow of news.
(“Watergate’s Last Chapter” Carl Bernstein, Vanity Fair October, 2005,
No kidding. As we all learned a few weeks ago, Woodward does not particularly care about whether something is news or not.
I don’t know all the facts about the NY Times, obviously; by all accounts the reason for withholding the story was because the paper capitulated to administration arguments about national security. But it looks bad. Tony Blankley used the impending book release to deride the story on Mclaughlin.
Franklin Foer and the Columbia Journalism Review seem to agree with the John Harris contention that the blogosphere’s criticism of the mainstream media is a partisan crusade on both sides. It simply isn’t. The left blogosphere doesn’t complain that the media is too conservative or Republican. We see it as being cowardly in the face of Republican thuggishness and that’s something else entirely. And it’s not just editors like John Harris or Tim Russert kow towing to Republican complaints or the reporters adherence to the ridiculous conventions of “he said/she said.” Those are just the obvious. The more insidious type of cowardice is that which takes scurrillous Republican tips and runs with them under the guise of “it’s out there” or that simply lets them stick without bothering to put resources to debunking them. It’s derisively giggling on Imus at the puerile bitchiness of GOP talking points like “earth tones” and “flip-flop” like a bunch of teen-age Heathers. It’s mainstreaming rightwing hatemongers by putting Ann Coulter on the cover of Newsweek and giving Rush Limbaugh a slot on election night coverage.
This isn’t about policy or partisanship. It’s about a press corps that takes the easier path and capitulates to the aggressive, hostile (and sometimes seductive) Republican machine or gets so lost in their arcane standards of objectivity and journalistic ethics that the truth no longer matters.
The Bernstein article goes on to describe a ridiculous tug of war that ensued when Vanity Fair broke the Felt story a few months later and Woodward insisted that the paper not confirm the story. He believed they couldn’t be sure that Felt really wanted to be released from the confidentiality agreement because he was old and couldn’t be relied upon to know his own mind. He argued that it would be dishonorable to confirm it even if the whole damned world already knew about it. Keeping the secret had become a singular virtue so important that it superceded all journalistic values.
Bernstein agreed at first and then was persuaded otherwise. He wrote:
In our conviction to uphold one fundamental principle (protecting our sources) we risked violating another — loyalty to the larger truth — and offense that would damage the reputation of all involved: The Post, felt ourselves.
It’s that — the loyalty to the larger truth — that we are looking for.
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