PressEthic

It looks like the New York Times will finally be saying goodbye to Judith Miller. In a November 9th article titled “Times and Reporter Reach Agreement on Her Departure,” Katharine Q. Seelye announces that the two week negotiation between The Times and Miller has come to an end. Some interesting highlights include:

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The Times, commented on the end of negotiations, but surprisingly, “Ms. Miller could not be reached for comment.” Since when is a reporter unreachable for comment, especially for one of her own freshly-divorced co-workers? I think her silence says more than any quote could. . .

Then, there’s talk about Miller’s “note” that should be published tomorrow:

Lawyers for Ms. Miller and the paper negotiated a severance package, the details of which they would not disclose. Under the agreement, Ms. Miller will retire from the newspaper, and The Times will print a letter she wrote to the editor explaining her position. Ms. Miller originally demanded that she be able to write an essay for the paper's Op-Ed page challenging the allegations against her. The Times refused that demand - Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page, said, "We don't use the Op-Ed page for back and forth between one part of the paper and another" - but agreed to let her write the letter.

In that letter, to be published in The New York Times on Thursday under the heading, "Judith Miller's Farewell," Ms. Miller said she was leaving partly because some of her colleagues disagreed with her decision to testify in the C.I.A. leak case.

"But mainly," she wrote, "I have chosen to resign because over the last few months, I have become the news, something a New York Times reporter never wants to be."

Miller doesn’t appear to address the fact that people disagree with her decision to go to jail, as well as her decision to leave before the end of her sentence. I guess she’s trying to play down the “grandstanding” accusations.