All the news that's fudged to print

All the news that's fudged to print
The New York Times sacrificed its top editor for the wrong reasons, says Ha=
rper's publisher JOHN MacARTHUR. If you think Jayson Blair was loose with t=
he facts, look at how the Times covered Iraq


By JOHN MacARTHUR
UPDATED AT 1:26 PM EDT Friday, Jun. 6, 2003


Yesterday's forced resignation of New York Times executive editor Howell Ra=
ines might lead a casual observer to conclude that the wayward reporter Jay=
son Blair (under Mr. Raines's lax supervision) had committed serial rape on=
the Grey Lady of West 43rd Street, rather than serial acts of journalistic=
fraud. In reality, this metaphoric beheading by the company's board of dir=
ectors furthers a preposterous image of victimization that covers up far mo=
re serious transgressions by the "paper of record."
Notwithstanding Mr. Blair's "crime," such a histrionic mea culpa recalls th=
e criminal who pleads to a lesser offence in order to escape prosecution fo=
r a more serious one. Whatever's driving the paper's nervous breakdown, I'm=
sure of this: The Times has lately been a perpetrator of fraud more than i=
ts victim.

Take the case of staff reporter Judith Miller, who covers the atomic bomb/c=
hemical-weapons-fear beat, and hasn't heard a scare story about Iraq that s=
he didn't believe, especially if leaked by her White House friends. On Sept=
. 8, 2002, Ms. Miller and her colleague Michael Gordon helped co-launch the=
Bush II sales campaign for Saddam-change with a front page story about uns=
uccessful Iraqi efforts to purchase 81-mm aluminum tubes, allegedly destine=
d for a revived nuclear weapons program.
Pitched to a 9/11-spooked public and a gullible, cowardly U.S. congress, th=
e aluminum tubes plant was a big component of the "weapons of mass destruct=
ion" canard, which resulted in hasty House and Senate war authorization on =
Oct. 11.

Months later, when the tubes connection was thoroughly discredited (UN weap=
ons inspectors past and present said the tubes were intended for convention=
al rocket production), the Times did not think it necessary to run a clarif=
ication. Nor was Ms. Miller disciplined for shoddy work; on the contrary, w=
hen the A-bomb threat had faded, the Bush administration astutely shifted t=
he media's focus to chemical and biological weapons – and Ms. Miller fell =
into line with the program.

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