Judith Miller tried to play the sympathy card for her jail time. But it's all a matter of perspective.
Of course, we have the freest press in the world (although Robert Menard's line about "information being a state-owned monoply" in Cuba rings oddly true here). Maybe American journalists can't single-handedly bring open information exchange to Cuba or China, but they shouldn't ignore it either.
...their freedom is a little bit our freedom, and without freedom for journalists, and freedom of expression, democracy cannot exist.
Tucked in a corner on page A12 of Thursday's New York Times is this article about an Iranian-Canadian journalist's death. If free journalists fully exercised the power they have, cases like this would be bigger news. Journalists have exposed injustices with reporting forever - why not do the same when the injustice involves other journalists?
Since her exit from the New York Times, Miller has said she would speak out in support of a federal shield law. Maybe she could lend that voice to journalists who really are stuck, who aren't just waiting for deals to be made among attorneys but for entire governments to recognize their validity. Even if it would make her feel a little silly for complaining.
willemmarx @ November 20, 2005 - 5:11pm
Much of this article makes enormous sense, Miller is neither dead (as is happening to journalists regularly in environments like Iraq), nor was she languishing in a rat-infested chamber of horrors this summer (as were many journalists in countries such as Uzbekistan); so some perspective on the self-absorbed, incestous world of US media may be required.
However, the assertion that the US has the most free media in the world would seem to be challenged by the Worldwide Press Freedom Index published for 2005, which shows the US dropping 20 places to 44th in the world for freedom of its media, and by the Press Freedom Rankings of Freedom House, which has the US dropping from 15 to 24th over the past year.
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