PressEthic

Reading Journalists Testify in Favor of Shield Law by Katharine Q. Seelye in today's New York Times, I'm haunted with unanswered questions. There aren't just holes in the story, there's suspicious holes.

It is in paragraph 6 of 23 that opposition to the Shield law bill is mentioned. We learn that the Justice department has "many objections," though what they are, I have no idea.

What the Times essentially says is that there is fear that Ms. Miller's shakey story and, shall we say, unfavorable personality will hinder the passage of a bill that actually has very little support in Congress anyway.

While the article takes plenty of time to give a character sketch of Judith Miller, but gives little weight to the opposition. The quoted source against the shield law is a United States attorney for "the Southern District of Texas" (could they aim to align it with Bush more?), and claims to be (the only person in the District of Columbia) unfamiliar with Ms. Miller's case. He is opposed to the law in light of fighting terrorism. US attorney Rosenberg--the one unfamiliar with Miller's case-- also quoted a widely varied number of reporters supoenaed in the last 14 years than that given in Judith Miller's testimony.

I must ask-- wasn't there someone more qualified to speak in opposition to this issue? No one was available who could speak to all aspects of the issue, and come out with a different opinion than Judith Miller?

You don't balance Judith Miller's shield law testimony with Judith Miller character assinations. You do it with opposition viewpoints. At best this is shoddy reporting. At worst, the Times is unable to extract themselves from either their internal Miller-crisis or shield law bias long enough to write fairly on the issue.