Telander's Note, a Column, and now SF Editor Bronstein Weighs In

You're still kidding yourself, Dave. Where exactly does one start looking for the truth if they don't think and follow a logical thought process?

As for freedom of the press being the only issue here, allow me to suggest that the best way to keep it is to exercise that freedom responsibly. And, frankly, it isn't quite clear that the Chronicle did that. If we wanted to ignore the details, we could have all hopped on the Judy Miller bandwagon, too. She didn't have cool T-shirts, though.

 

Matter of taste, I guess, but I prefer to start with facts and see where they lead me.

And what were the "details" in the Judy Miller affair that were so awful you wouldn't stand up for her on a freedom of the press issue? All she did was answer the phone and then refuse to tell a grand jury who called.

 

Yeah, cos there are surely jurisdictions where people haven't heard of the Barry Bonds situation, or about BALCO :. Change of venue is no silver bullet. And Tim, whatever incidental effects there might be out of this, the Chron was not thinking about the children. They were thinking about Pulitzers and swollen metaphorical mooseheads on their wall.

 

Actually, you seem to want to ignore inconvenient facts because you might not like where they lead you.

Judy Miller quite freely allowed herself to become a mouthpiece for the administration and in doing so did a great disservice to journalism. She used extremely poor judgement in not questioning the motives of her sources and damaged the NY Times in the process. Other than that she did a bang-up job.

You also seem to want to contain the debate to the most narrow aspects. If that's all we're allowed to discuss here on the journalism board, fine. I support the Chronicle on that very narrow issue, however, I do so while holding my nose and fearing they may have hurt the cause in the long run by not exercising their freedom responsibly.

 

So when do you plan to start? We're waiting.

 

Dave
With all due respect, she did an awful lot more than that. She ran amok with anonymity on behalf of a bunch of power-crazy think-tank cowboys and crooked Iraqi exiles. She ran bogus, awful stories -- Remember the "Iraqi scientist" with a baseball cap that waved at her over an alleged pile of WMD material? She couldn't interview him. That story made the front page of the damn NYT!-- and she took the credibility of her newspaper right down the chute with her.
I support these two guys. I do so with my eyes open, though, having lived through the run-up to this war and to the sieve that was Ken Starr's OSP.

 

Fenian
Miller went to jail over Plame/Scooter. The Iraq stuff was near-simultaneous but unrelated; for that, she was fired/allowed to resign/whatever, which, if you ask me, is how journalism, not the government, should police bad reporting.

 

I think what we have here is a simple disagreement between one side that believes the reporters were right to accept and print the grand jury transcripts because exposing steroid use by major stars, including the biggest of them all, serves the greater good; and those who think it didn't, that this is all about "steroid hysteria" and is overblown, etc.

Dave, Lugnuts, Tim and the others are doing a good job arguing for the side I'm on. I also trust that the SF Chronicle gave all of this thought, and the reporters did their due dilligence, considered the source and decided to run with it. I don't want to turn this unusually-highbrow thread into a pissing match over the steroids issue, but I just can't help but think the biggest problem that cranberry, dooley and fenian have is that this is about steroids being an overblown problem. Personally I'm not going to hide my prejudice: I believe steroids are a major issue, the Giambi/Bonds stories served the greater good, which is why I would have printed them too, and which is why I believe the Chronicle was right to also.

 

RWH
To tell the truth, just as I don't care who the leaker was, I don't care that it was about steroids. Some good was done, but was it any more good than we, the media, accomplished with Courson or Caminti or Tooz or Rob Garibaldi? It's momentary, and soon we'll be on to the next performance enhancer scandal. The issue that will always be here is the government against the press. That day at the courthouse, when I asked Bronstein if this prosecution was part of the current administration's assault on the press, he said, "All administrations do it." That is the issue. The press must be free to report without fear of governmental oppression. Then, if the reporters are dishonest, newspapers can fire their asses.

 

Plame-Scooter was very much related to Iraq and the too-cozy relationship Miller developed with sources when she should have been questioning their motives. She mishandled and, as I understand it, overstepped her beat. She was an absolute disgrace to journalism. I don't like that she was sent to jail but her conduct has helped erode the public's confidence in journalists. And the public's opinion matters when you're trying to get Congress to pass a federal shield law. Unfortunately, journalism hasn't been doing a very good job of policing itself. Actually, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any industry that does a good job of policing itself.

 

And a four-line correction runs on Page 2.

 

What evidence do you have to support the notion that they "didn't exercise that freedom responsibly?" All I've seen are theories that they possibly were used as tools, maybe by the prosecution, and that they might have used poor judgment because Judith Miller did.
That's not the issue here. The issue is the government trying to take away one of the most basic freedoms, one that ceases to exist the second reporters are forced to turn in their sources.