Media Nation

Paul Fahri of the Washington Post today sheds a bit of light on the New York Times’ decision to wait a year before publishing yesterday’s blockbuster article that the Bush administration has been using the National Security Agency (“No Such Agency”) to conduct no-warrant wiretapping inside the United States.

Fahri notes that Times executive editor Bill Keller, in a statement, made no reference to the fact that the information will be included in a forthcoming book by James Risen, the lead reporter on yesterday’s story. Drudge was much taken with this, suggesting that the Times was helping to promote Risen’s book, “State of War,” at the expense of national security.

It’s hard to take Drudge seriously. At the same time, I’m sure that Keller didn’t want to be scooped by his own reporter’s book. So it’s not inconceivable that the book had something to do with Keller’s decision to break his paper’s year-long silence.

Here is a key passage in Fahri’s Post article:

The decision to withhold the article caused some friction within the Times’ Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the bureau, including Risen and co-writer Eric Lichtblau, had pushed for earlier publication, according to these people. One described the story’s path to publication as difficult, with much discussion about whether it could have been published earlier.

In a statement yesterday, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller did not mention the book. He wrote that when the Times became aware that the NSA was conducting domestic wiretaps without warrants, “the Administration argued strongly that writing about this eavesdropping program would give terrorists clues about the vulnerability of their communications and would deprive the government of an effective tool for the protection of the country’s security.”

“Officials also assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions,” Keller continued. “As we have done before in rare instances when faced with a convincing national security argument, we agreed not to publish at that time.”

In the ensuing months, Keller wrote, two things changed the paper’s thinking. The paper developed a fuller picture of misgivings about the program by some in the government. And the paper satisfied itself through more reporting that it could write the story without exposing “any intelligence-gathering methods or capabilities that are not already on the public record.”

Here are some questions that Keller should answer — like today, on Byron Calame’s rarely updated blog, or tomorrow on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” To wit:

1. You’ve said that you delayed publication out of national-security considerations and to conduct more reporting. Which was more important? If you knew then what you know now, would you have gone to press a year ago?

2. One of the Times’ more shameful historical moments took place in 1961, when it held back on the details of the forthcoming Bay of Pigs invasion. (The Times actually published a lot more at the time than the myth-makers would have it, but never mind.) If the lesson of that episode was that journalists should not hop into bed with the White House, why is this different?

3. Conversely, if you really did have serious national-security concerns about publishing this story a year ago, have things really changed that much? Or were you influenced by the looming publication date of Risen’s book?

Of course, President Bush has a lot more to explain than Keller does. Bush didn’t even begin to do that in his interview with Jim Lehrer last night. Here is one question for Bush that has been bugging me since I read Risen’s story yesterday: As Risen describes it, the administration could have done all the domestic spying it wanted to if it had simply directed the FBI to obtain warrants from a secret court under the terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Such warrants are rarely turned down.

Therefore, the White House’s decision to conduct such searches through the NSA rather than the FBI, without a warrant, suggests one of two possibilities: (1) the reasoning behind the spying requests was so dubious that administration officials didn’t dare approach even a normally compliant FISA judge; or (2) as Scott Shane writes in today’s Times, administration officials — and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney — are so obsessed with extending the power of the presidency that they’d rather stretch the law to (or past) the breaking point than follow the rules.

Another fiasco. And judging from the initial reaction, this one isn’t going to get swallowed up in the media miasma.

Admiral Richard Gurnon explains when he realized he was in trouble with Arthur Desrocher, chairman of the board of trustees at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Sarah Schweitzer reports in today’s Globe:

Gurnon said he knew he was a “dead man walking” after he returned from a business trip to Texas last month. He said no one returned his calls and more ominously, Desrocher had stopped leaving a doughnut on his desk, as he had done routinely every Tuesday. “After Nov. 15,” Gurnon said. “I saw no more doughnuts.”

The state Board of Education yesterday reinstated Gurnon as president of the academy. Let the doughnut-eating resume.

Herald coverage here.

Ben extends his reach, adding a second blog, Healey Is a Fraud, to his longstanding contribution to the civic dialogue known as Romney Is a Fraud. (Via Universal Hub. And yes, Adam, I do know where the name “Ben” comes from. What’s my prize?)

I don’t know about this. Romney’s transparently self-serving approach to governing is hard to take, but I’ve got nothing against Healey. I certainly don’t hold it against her that she occasionally puts her foot in her mouth. I like that in a politician. Don’t you?

Jon Keller, the political reporter for WBZ-TV (Channel 4), broke the story yesterday that Gov. Mitt Romney would not seek re-election in 2006. [D’oh! I originally wrote “2004.”] For a good time, click here, hit “play” and watch Keller ask Romney about Democratic accusations that he’s presided over “the third straight hit-and-run governorship.” Not that the unflappable Romney reacts, but at least it’s the right question.

Globe West reporter Lisa Kocian takes a look at citizen journalism in Greater Boston, focusing on HopNews.com, which covers the town of Hopkinton. Among other things, she quotes me on this burgeoning movement.

Mr. Buzz Machine’s post is here. To which I say, “Jeff! No one is proposing to kill Dan Froomkin’s blog!” This isn’t about the future of journalism — it’s a truth-in-labeling dispute. Sheesh.

Last night I finally had a chance to read Ken Auletta’s nearly-10,000-word New Yorker piece on New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. The subhead asks, “Can Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., save the Times — and himself?” Unfortunately, Auletta is able only to muster a “maybe.” Still, Auletta does his usual dogged, thorough job of reporting every angle, and his graceful writing makes this a surprisingly quick read.

One complaint: Other than a detailed rehash of Jayson Blair/ Howell Raines/ Judith Miller (including the reappearance of the moose), I didn’t come away from the article with any clearer sense than I had before of what kind of business executive or publisher Sulzberger is. Auletta reports that Sulzberger has a reputation for being disengaged from the business side of his job, and well-intentioned but naive when it comes to journalism. But there’s little here in the way of examples that we don’t already know.

I did find myself feeling — well, not exactly sorry for Judith Miller, but nevertheless appalled by Sulzberger’s treatment of her. By Auletta’s account, Sulzberger morphed from her biggest champion into someone who wanted nothing to do with her without ever having the grace to tell her why.

There are also several telling anecdotes, and this is perhaps the most brutal:

On September 12th, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was invited to a publisher’s luncheon at which various Times editors and reporters were present. Such events are common in the life of the Times and other major newspapers, but this one had an odd start. A security dog that had earlier been sniffing for bombs got sick on the carpet of the room where the lunch was to be held. The mess was cleaned up, but the stench was still noticeable when Rice and her party arrived. The air-conditioning was turned up high to diminish the smell, but it was difficult to hear above the noise. Sulzberger greeted Rice and, according to the transcript posted on the State Department’s Web site, began by asking how she thought the United States was “viewed right now by the United Nations,” and whether it mattered. “And before you answer that question, just so everybody knows,” he said, “it’s pretty loud in this room, so my apologies. The bomb-sniffing dog threw up here.” Everyone laughed, but Sulzberger continued to apologize, and, as some of the reporters present cringed, Rice finally said, “Thank you for sharing that.”

More than anything, Auletta’s story is a cautionary tale of what can happen when a family dynasty is determined to keep things in the family. Obviously there is no way someone with Sulzberger’s flaws could have risen to the top of the Times Co. — and the Times — had he not been the son of Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger. The son’s inadequacies are now being exposed for everyone to see.

Yet surely it’s a good thing that the Times Co. hasn’t passed into the hands of a huge, publicly traded corporation. Sulzberger does seem to know that a relentless focus on the bottom line would ultimately be bad for business, since the excellence of the Times’ journalism is the only real product that he’s got to sell. If only there were more newspaper executives who believed that.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the United States is ranked sixth — tied with the military dictatorship of Burma — in the number of journalists it has imprisoned. Coming in ahead of them are China, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uzbekistan.

According to the CPJ, the U.S. is holding a total of five journalists — four in Iraq and one at Guantánamo Bay.

Is it possible that these five are terrorists who were posing as journalists? Of course. But in reading the CPJ’s descriptions of their cases, it becomes immediately clear that American officials have made no good-faith effort to explain themselves or to allow international scrutiny.

Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote a column over the weekend in which, among other things, she reported that the print folks are upset about a blog written for washingtonpost.com by Dan Froomkin.

The Post’s national politics editor, John Harris, is among those concerned about having a blogger who is perceived as a liberal Bush-basher writing an online column labeled “White House Briefing,” as though he were a Post political reporter. It strikes me as a legitimate concern, and Howell was right to propose that the column get a new name.

I’m not going to link to everything. Jay Rosen’s got it all, as well as thoughtful Q&As with Harris, washingtonpost.com executive editor Jim Brady and Froomkin himself. It’s well worth reading. Keep in mind that no one, including Harris, is proposing to get rid of Froomkin’s blog.

But I do want to say something about the ubiquitous blogging champion Jeff Jarvis, whose hyperkinetic presence is much sought-after by cable news programmers, and who is thought to be something of an expert on the emerging world of online journalism. If you do your homework and read the material Rosen assembled first, I guarantee you will be startled by this from Jarvis’ blog, Buzz Machine:

Deborah Howell … writes an ombudsman column for the Washington Post that illustrates, in its quotes from editors at the paper, the kind of clueless, destructive, and snobbish territoriality between print and online that is killing newspapers….

What a terrible insult and slap at a colleague who writes a very good, respected, and journalistic column for online. What a slap from a newsroom snot. [That would be the aforementioned John Harris.] But that is what newsrooms are like….

[T]he audience has clearly shown its support for the online Post over the printed one; the only reason online is not as successful is because advertisers are even more behind than newspaper editors. And the audience has clearly shown Froomkin their support. Perhaps the paper should be doing more of what he does. Did you ever think of that, o, vaunted newspaper editors?

This is just self-serving bloviation over what’s really a minor matter: trying to make sure that a highly opinionated blogger who writes for washingtonpost.com isn’t confused with Post reporters who are trying to cover the White House in a fair and neutral manner.

Rosen advances the conversation and adds to our understanding of what’s going on inside the Post newsroom. Jarvis subtracts from it. Then again, Jarvis’ only goal seems to be calling attention to himself.

End-of-semester deadlines prevent me from immediately reading Ken Auletta’s big piece on New York Times Co. chairman (and Times publisher) Arthur Sulzberger Jr. But Mark Jurkowitz has some highlights. Mark’s take on Auletta’s take: “[E]ven in his mid-50’s, Sulzberger is too unseasoned and undisciplined for the role.”

Following the Judith Miller meltdown, speculation was rampant (if unfounded) that Sulzberger might be pressured into giving up one of his jobs — most likely the publisher’s position. The buzz died down. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Auletta’s piece starts it up all over again.

Kaus thinks that despite the missteps of the past several years, the family isn’t quite ready to give up on not-so-young Arthur: “A cool-headed outsider perspective suggests that at least one more anti-Pinch tidbit or scandal will be required for the Class B shareholders to end their family nightmare. Or at least start a new chapter.”