This may be frustrating to our armchair critics, and it is frustrating to all of us, but it is not unusual even for this investigation.
-- Bill Keller to New York Times staff, Oct. 11.
There were some small breaks Wednesday in the matter of missing journalism at the New York Times. They came on the website of the New York Observer, where reporter Gabriel Sherman is starting to get replies to some of the most glaring questions.
We learn several things from the Observer's latest. It says (as the Times story did) that the notes Judith Miller belatedly "found" were not in the Washington bureau. Newsweek's Michael Isikoff had reported otherwise, citing "lawyers close to the case."
Sherman: "That struck many as odd, since Ms. Miller doesn’t really work out of the Washington bureau. Washington bureau staffers said that they were unaware of any notes turning up on their turf. 'She’s not been here since her confinement,' a Washington bureau staffer said. 'We’ve been left out of this story, and then suddenly it seemed like the bureau was involved, when in fact we weren’t.' A lawyer familiar with the case said the new material came from Ms. Miller’s own notebook, turned over by her legal team."
"We've been left out of this story" is a glimpse into what's going on at the Times. Nearly everyone feels that way-- including of course Times readers.
Next we learn about the columnists failing to comment, which has been so striking to observers. Sherman got editorial page editor Gail Collins to at least address it. Hooray!
So far, since Ms. Miller’s decision to leave jail and testify, the opinion and news pages have been in harmony—- if silence counts as harmony. As speculation about the case burns up the blogosphere, none of the Times columnists have weighed in on the subject.
Ms. Collins said there’s no edict barring the Op-Ed crew from writing about Ms. Miller.
“They choose their own subjects,” Ms. Collins said, “and they’re edited only by a copy editor. I have no idea what they will write until I see it in the paper.”
No edict. They choose. So the muting of the columnists isn't planned or ordered, it just is-- harmonically. (None wants to be embarrassed by facts that have yet to come out: that's my guess.)
In another first, Sherman got Jonathan Landman, the editor in charge of the big investigation of Miller, to break radio silence and communicate with Times readers-- via the website of the Observer. An indirect method, but better than nothing.
Deputy managing editor Jon Landman—who is overseeing a Miller-case reporting team that includes Adam Liptak, Janny Scott and Don Van Natta Jr.—said that the delay is a matter of full access, not permission.
“What Bill is talking about is not when we can write a story,” Mr. Landman said. “What he is talking about is when [Ms. Miller] can be expected to tell what happened.”
The Times is handling the situation the way that other publications caught up in Mr. Fitzgerald’s investigation handled their own reporters’ cases, Mr. Landman said.
“What is holding up the Times reporting on this is Judy’s continued legal entanglements,” he continued. “The reporting goes on, but the publication of the story that you’re talking about will be determined when she’s out from contempt. It’s the same as [Time magazine’s] Matt Cooper. When the contempt citation was served, he didn’t write something. Once it was lifted, he wrote something. And Time also did something with it.”
This appears to be the official story: the Times is following some kind of established procedure. It's doing no worse than Time magazine did on disclosure. Sherman points out one difference: "Mr. Cooper didn’t surprise anyone by coming up with an extra set of notes after his grand-jury appearance." He closes with the frustration of the staff with the Times at bay:
None of us is aware what the story is,” one Times staffer said. “We’re awaiting information just like our readers are. There are a huge number of mysteries that need to be resolved. The paper needs to resolve it for their readers— and staff.”
Which leads to my own speculation. Ordinarily I avoid that; here, since the Times has decided to say as little as possible, it is more justified. What follows, then, is not what someone told me; and I didn't read it in the papers. It's not information, or journalism, but at best informed guesswork-- a deduction from things we know. I like emptywheel's phrase, "My latest refined scenario."
In my latest refined scenario...
Warning: This is just armchair speculation, okay? Could be quite wrong.
The New York Times is in a suspended state, editorially speaking. In fact, the entire organization--with the exception of a few lawyers, a few top executives, a few top editors, plus Jon Landman and his crew--is in the dark about Miller, uncertain of what a full investigation will find, unwilling to speak in the absence of knowledge now being gathered, fearful that the emerging story could be devastating to:
* the reputation of the New York Times for independence and honesty
* the stand on high principle that took Judy Miller to jail
* the positions of the people in charge (the editors, the publisher) who supported that stand as selfless and heroic
* whole portions of the Times news coverage, as happened with its faulty reporting on Saddam's weapons.
* an intelligent reader's confidence in the Times as reputable news source
* their own illusions about the New York Times as pillar of a free press
Which of these will be toppled by the end of the month? Which will be standing? No one knows. Any or all could be in ruins when the facts come out. Or none. This creates anxiety. (Again, I'm engaged in speculation.)
Baffled and frustrated journalists
What might look like a conscious decision to curtail normal news coverage, or "muzzle" the columnists is nothing of the kind. There are no orders to cease and desist. Nor is there any invitation to examine the Miller case with the tools a great newspaper has available. There is only the suspended state, which includes silence from the top, reporting talent that has been sidelined, and supervisors who are themselves in the dark.
No one wants to make a move that would break the stillness. On the whole, the staff is baffled and frustrated, feeling out of the loop, and worried that Miller was involved in things even the people in charge don't know about or comprehend yet.
At this point Judith Miller is a deeply unpopular figure in the newsroom, even with the sacrifice of her freedom for 85 days, an act which most Times-people identified with and respected at first. It is painful to learn that their instinct to side with Miller when she was jailed and defiant--a form of loyalty--may blow up in their faces. They wonder how the Times got itself into a situation where Judy Miller and her attorneys seem to be calling the shots for the newspaper-at-large.
Judith Miller is a Washington journalist for the Times, but she isn't under the control of the Times Washington bureau-- or a "member" of it. She's attached to the investigative unit in New York. The bureau ("We’ve been left out of this story") feels isolated; it has been ignored and de-fanged by the confounding logic of this case. Anything new it might dig up could complicate Judy Miller's trials, or undermine the positions (and prior statements) of the people in charge of the newspaper.
What the reporters in the DC bureau cannot do is report on the Judy Miller story without fear or favor. It's killing them. But what recourse do they have... complain to the publisher? He bet the First Amendment house on Judy Miller.
Miller's non-cooperation
Miller has said she will cooperate with the Times reporters, but not yet... In reality (I speculate) they are getting nothing material from her, just as we are getting nothing. And nothing is all they are ever going to get. The full extent of her refusal to tell the Times what she knows has not been admitted yet, for it would be an ominous sign. That her cooperation is right around the corner helps maintain the fiction that Keller's "vigorous reporting effort" would be before us, were it not for the prosecutor's continued interest in Miller.
Officially, everything has to wait until the moment when Judy "can be expected to tell what happened," as Landman so carefully put it. When it comes and she still refuses the hierarchy will turn a whiter shade of pale. Key people will then know their investment in Miller went terribly wrong. That is when telling the truth to readers will be the only option.
Because she won't cooperate, she won't be allowed to do what Matt Cooper did: write a first person account. You may have noticed that no one associated with the Times speaks of Miller publishing her story later on. (Which blows the parallel to Time and Cooper.) I think they know it's not going to happen in their newspaper.
Thus the team of Jonathan Landman, Don Van Natta, Adam Liptak and Janny Scott will have to tell Miller's story without Miller's help-- and in a sense "against" her. No one had planned for this, and it is part of the reason for the sputtering and the delay. Especially as her story crumbles, Miller has no interest in helping the Times reporters investigate her.
Indeed the Wall Street Journal reported today that a.) the contempt order against Miller had been lifted, which is big news for the missing journalism; and b.) "Ms. Miller declined to say whether she would be giving an interview to the Times." (My italics.) Okay, say you’re Judy Miller. Your own attorney says you’re in the clear to be a journalist again. But you can’t say whether you’ll be granting the Times an interview? That counts as a fact favorable to my speculations.
Her non-cooperation with the reporting team is related, of course, to the incomplete account she gave to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Because of that she still has legal counsel advising her to keep quiet, and because of that the Times says it can't report her story. This is the state of suspension, where only the lawyers appear to be in charge.
The risk in publishing
Problem is there's no telling whether Patrick Fitzgerald will turn up facts devastating to the New York Times, truth the Times was itself unable to discover. Therefore there is a substantial risk in publishing the big investigation Keller has promised until Fitzgerald shows what he has, especially as Miller becomes a non-cooperating journalist. What if Fitzgerald has the goods and the Times doesn't?
Jeralyn Merrit refined one scenario: "when Fitzgerald’s investigation is over, and it becomes clear that Judith Miller didn’t go to jail because she is Saint Judy, protecting the First Amendment rights of journalists everywhere, but to protect her own career and sources, so no one would learn just how embedded she is with the Bush Admininstration."
And if something like that happened, it's going to mean the Times was far too "embedded" with the Administration. Times people know it, and dread it. Greg Mitchell explains why. This kind of awareness has created the suspended state. No one decreed that Times journalism would go missing. No one enforces it, either. The suspension of journalism isn't debated among decision-makers because it isn't a "decided" state at all-- it's a default one.
If there is any strong current of hope it has an incredibly simple source: that Times journalism will win out in the end, despite all the coming losses, because in the end Jonathan Landman, Don Van Natta, Adam Liptak and Janny Scott will be able to tell the truth.
Earlier at PressThink:
Judith Miller and Her Times (Oct. 2): "Notice how it affects what the New York Times, a great institution, can tell the public, and yet Judy's decision was hers: personal when she made it (her conditions weren't met), personal when she changed it (her conditions were met.) That's what I mean by Miller's Times."
News Comes in Code: Judy Miller's Return to the Times (Oct. 4): "Just one man's opinion, but now is a good time to say it: The New York Times is not any longer--in my mind--the greatest newspaper in the land. Nor is it the base line for the public narrative that it once was. Some time in the last year or so I moved the Washington Post into that position..."
The Shimmer: Missing Data at the New York Times (Oct. 10) "Whereas a week ago, I was calling it 'Judy Miller's New York Times' to emphasize how she seemed to be the actor-in-chief, I now think it's more than that: a bigger unknown is affecting things. Not only is the Times not operating properly, it's unable to say to readers: here's why we're not."