Continuing: Judy Miller and the O

Submitted by LynnS on Fri, 10/21/2005 - 4:33pm.

Over on Bert's blog, this was posted in the comments by "twilit maunderings":

Anybody know how the O's newsroom is feeling about the Judy Miller saga? Since Steve Engelberg, her Very Close Colleague and Supervisor before the war, is now guiding O reporters?

Don't reporters like the comfort of knowing that somebody's watching their back, somebody who can be relied on to haul them back to reality if they start going off the deep end? How does it affect your work if the guy who's got your back may have been an enabler as a famously dangerous loose cannon worked herself loose?

Engelberg was referenced in the NYT article on the Miller situation on the 16th, specifically quoted here:

"Judy is a very intelligent, very pushy reporter," said Stephen Engelberg, who was Ms. Miller's editor at The Times for six years and is now a managing editor at The Oregonian in Portland. "Like a lot of investigative reporters, Judy benefits from having an editor who's very interested and involved with what she's doing."

In the year after Mr. Engelberg left the paper in 2002, though, Ms. Miller operated with a degree of autonomy rare at The Times.

Don't know Engelberg, don't know Miller; am curious what O people think about this.

Categories: JudithMiller, Plame, Plamegate, NewYorkTimes, journalism

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Maureen Dowd on Judy Miller

Submitted by Anonymous Source on Fri, 10/21/2005 - 9:43pm.

this kinda fits with what engelberg said in the sunday story...that she needed an editor at the other end of the leash..and she had no leash.

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/22/opinion/22dowd.html?hp

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behind the paywall

Submitted by LynnS on Fri, 10/21/2005 - 9:53pm.

Dowd's behind the paywall now; can't get there from that link without subscribing. I so hate that.

Lynn Siprelle * Former Innie * OMI Coordinator

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Here's the column

Submitted by newsie on Fri, 10/21/2005 - 10:09pm.

[Edited for "fair use"--folks, please don't violate copyright. Thanks.]
From Maureen Dowd's column linked in full above:

[Judy] never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."

Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that Senator Bob Graham, now retired, dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.

Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.

When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept "drifting" back. Why did nobody stop this drift?

...

Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.

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Engelberg

Submitted by Anonymous Source on Sat, 10/22/2005 - 2:07am.

From a New York Mag article:

The process of editing [Miller] sounds like an exercise in misery, requiring a constant subjection to her fits of anger; it draws editors into her interoffice disputes with other reporters. Another adds, “There’s only one editor who has had the skill, energy, and willingness to harness her energy—Stephen Engelberg.

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who is?

Submitted by Anonymous Source on Sat, 10/22/2005 - 8:33am.

i'll ask again...who is the judith miller at the O?

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that

Submitted by Anonymous Source on Sat, 10/22/2005 - 1:56pm.

is the kind of mean-spirited discussion i'd hope we wouldn't have. there's only one judith miller, and she's at the times. questions like these encourage people to anonymously harm people they hold grudges against without needing to provide evidence or be held accountable for their comments.

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it's only mean-spirited

Submitted by LynnS on Sat, 10/22/2005 - 3:13pm.

If someone is identified, and identified unfairly at that. So far, I don't see anyone stepping up to answer that question--for the second time at least, I might add.

Lynn Siprelle * Former Innie * OMI Coordinator

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