Judith Miller Talks
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Media, The War On TerrorismAnd I listen:
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Mr. Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name “Valerie Flame.” Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled.
Flame indeed. Her name certainly set off a firestorm.
Read the whole thing and try to make sense of what Miller wrote in her notebook. What’s clear is how very messy a reporter’s job truly is. Notes written here and there, on various pages of her notebook, without knowledge as to what context they were written in at the time.
But this passage certainly reveals an interesting side of the NY Times. They actually didn’t go after the Plame leak.
Although I was interested primarily in my area of expertise - chemical and biological weapons - my notes show that Mr. Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration’s nuclear claims. His main theme echoed that of other senior officials: that contrary to Mr. Wilson’s criticism, the administration had had ample reason to be concerned about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities based on the regime’s history of weapons development, its use of unconventional weapons and fresh intelligence reports.At that breakfast meeting, our conversation also turned to Mr. Wilson’s wife. My notes contain a phrase inside parentheses: “Wife works at Winpac.” Mr. Fitzgerald asked what that meant. Winpac stood for Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control, the name of a unit within the C.I.A. that, among other things, analyzes the spread of unconventional weapons.
I said I couldn’t be certain whether I had known Ms. Plame’s identity before this meeting, and I had no clear memory of the context of our conversation that resulted in this notation. But I told the grand jury that I believed that this was the first time I had heard that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked for Winpac. In fact, I told the grand jury that when Mr. Libby indicated that Ms. Plame worked for Winpac, I assumed that she worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative.
Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether I ever pursued an article about Mr. Wilson and his wife. I told him I had not, though I considered her connection to the C.I.A. potentially newsworthy. I testified that I recalled recommending to editors that we pursue a story.
Ignorance or prudence? You be the judge.
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October 16th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
As a young reporter, I was warned about what would happen to you on the witness stand if you kept sloppy or incomplete notes. Somehow, Ms. Miller didn’t seem to get this lesson.
What my editor then told me — and I still find this questionable, though I don’t know of a better solution — was either to keep everything, every note, every transcript, in order and explicable, or keep nothing. As a consequence, of the hundreds of reporters’ notebooks I’ve filled over the years, I don’t have a single one.
October 16th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
I’ve heard that before, and I think your strategy is perhaps the best. Just chuck it and move on. Of course, I doubt the bigger papers would allow this type of strategy.
You know what they should do? Set up a newspaper wiki where people post their notes, and other fact check em. That way you can do things in real time and see who changed what story at what time. I’m sure newspapers are doing these already, but you usually have to retype your notes into a story anyway. Why not put it in wiki form?
October 16th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
Sausage factory metaphor. You really don’t want to know how this is done.
October 17th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
I don’t think Judy Miller is a sloppy reporter. I think she’s a liar.