Talk About Burying The Lede
Brian “Empty Suit” Calame has a nice little paragraph at the end of his column today. Says, sort of, that perhaps leaking classified information and publishing it on the front page of the New York Times in a manner that aids our enemies might not have been a dandy idea after all.
My July 2 column strongly supported The Times’s decision to publish its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program. After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis. While it’s a close call now, as it was then, I don’t think the article should have been published.
…
What kept me from seeing these matters more clearly earlier in what admittedly was a close call? I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith in a free press — two traits that I warned readers about in my first column.
Do what?
Perhaps he was blinded by something else?
I will readily agree that perhaps the NYT is not actively working for the destruction of the country and the loss of the war. I would also point out that many of their actions do not consistently support that thesis.
Hat tip JustOneMinute.
4 Responses to “Talk About Burying The Lede”
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October 22nd, 2006 at 9:56 pm
NYT Public Editor Admits Publication Wrong
It takes three months to realize that these stories undermine US national security? That there was no illegal activity on the part of the US government? Or that the NYT should have held the stories because of the beneficial data that these programs c…
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:17 am
Pardon my cynicism, but it seems to me Mssr. Calame is just trying to buy himself trading space for the next leak — something along the lines of
“…in light of my public angst over publishing the column on banking surveillance, this time I really, really, really thought it over really hard and have come to the conclusion that XXXX should be published. I take this course after determining that unlike the last time, my motives are not out of simple distaste for the Bush Administration and its continued pillorying in public of the free press but rather that this vital etc, etc, etc…”
… or something like that…
- SJS
October 26th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
“I would also point out that many of their actions do not consistently support that thesis”
You have a penchant for understatement, son.
Subsunk
January 2nd, 2007 at 6:36 pm
[...] The NYT ombudsman admits…sorta…in the last paragraphs…that maybe this releasing classified information thing might be not all good. [...]