PressEthic

What first caught my eye with this article was the tag on my RSS feed - "Suggestion: Let Bernie Goldberg Write the Judy Miller Story."

I was hoping for a preview of Bernie's manuscript, full of italics and with more exclamation points than two 6th-graders' IM conversation.

It was a bit anticlimactic. Ellen Heltzel just argues that Miller shouldn't write it, so, "Bring on Bernie Goldberg, who has exhausted the liberal-bias thing and could now turn to the damage being done to the trade by its renegades." All that really left me with was to ask what kind of liberal renegade shakes her pom-poms for the Bush administration like Miller has. But keep reading.

I admire Miller's aggressiveness as a reporter, but the double standard between her and crusty male journalists like Seymour Hersh has to be noted here. Hersh would never expect to be invited to the White House. He plays an outsider's game. In contrast, Miller felt she needed a personal phone call from Libby to back up the letter he had already sent saying she could name him as a source. Miller was whisked out of her jail cell to a fancy hotel for a manicure and massage at her employer's expense. Women journalists everywhere should observe a moment's silence for this massive blow to their collective credibility.

Women journalists are worse off for Judy Miller.

Mess of confusion as this situation is, that's a fact. She gets away with this "You ain't the boss of me" bulldog attitude - at the New York Times, no less - gets chummy with the Sulzbergers and then slips in WMD stories full of holes and sources anonymous even to her editor. Why was she allowed to be Miss Run Amok?

No editor, especially a male editor, wants to be the one who oppresses the enterprising, modern woman.

I'm all for modern women - I like to think I even am one. But maybe, like Jayson Blair played the race card, Judy Miller played the empowered woman card to push her agenda (which seems to anchor around her belief the rules didn't apply to her).

Power is dangerous, but especially the kind of power that makes people confuse attitude for competence. Of course, Miller was a good reporter before this fiasco. But now, as other women journalists try to succeed on their merit, this will precede them:

"Gee, I don't remember how that name got in my notebook...You mean I could be in jail even longer?...I'm so over credibility - I need a manicure."

Good luck ladies.