Talk:Judith Miller

Lack of Balance and Basic Fairness

Of all the politically tainted articles in Wikipedia this one has got to be one of the worst. It is coatracked all to hell with hatred for Miller, there is hardly anything in it that's informative concerning the journalist herself. There is way too much speculation and opinion inserted into it, and all of it goes one way. The journalistic standards that Miller is held to here are standards regularly violated by the news media when it comes to politicians and policies they like -- they have no qualms about being stenographers for the Obama administration and hardly ever question or analyze the nonsense that regularly issues therefrom. The complaint from her critics is that she didn't routinely and automatically disbelieve everything the administration said. Is that the standard being followed by journalists concerning the President's administration now days? The only source that anyone had about Iraq in those days was the intelligence community. How was Miller supposed to double check that?

Where are the higher ups at Wikipedia? Can we assume that they really think there's nothing wrong with this article? Really? We don't even get a warning about it?RFabian (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

The articles cited against Miller are on opinion sites like Slate and Salon. Which leads to the conclusion, she was right all along. Down further, a Huffington Post opinion is used to back up a claim she was wrong. Find some reputable sources or remove the claims. My Wiki-fu is lacking, just an interested observer. Was curious about Miller's work and the critiques are all opinion pieces at crazy truther sites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.11.109.13 (talk) 15:43, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• I am right wing, and I do not find the article misrepresentative of her life at the Times and afterwards. She is controversial - but for well documented professional actions. Her beat was military threats, and one time she had the goods and didn't go to print, and another time she didn't have the goods and did go to print, and the Times subsequently parted ways with her. I don't think she would write the article all that differently, as she doesn't shy from any of the facts mentioned.Bob the goodwin (talk) 05:06, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Removed

According to Salon.com, "Since her early days at the Times, when she inserted CIA misinformation into a piece on Libya, [Miller]'s always been a tool of power. She was the voice of the Defense Department, embedded at the Times."[4]

This has been removed since the Salon.com piece was an opinion piece that did not back up the statement with any documentation. The piece also included such "zingers" as "She was hyping bullshit stories..." and "When no one else would have her, because she's a bad journalist (and, reportedly, a rude and unpleasant person), the right-wing media welcomed her." There is nothing professional about the piece (neither research nor comportment).

This was a hit piece and nothing else. Random quotes from hit pieces are not Encyclopedic and do not belong in Wikipedia. The above claim is potentially libelous and does not comport with Wikipedia's stance on biographies of living persons. The piece itself had to be edited so it didn't draw legal fire from one of the companies that got hit by collateral damage in its attempt to lambaste Miller: "Update: We have altered the language of this post after several media outlets amended their coverage and we received a request from Newsmax. We never intended to imply that their business practices violate any laws." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.245.157.223 (talk) 19:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Just watching a rerun of a 4/16/15 Cspan show with Miller. How could any news media ever have had her in the building much less writing anything. Somehow she had a lot of insider (DC) sources - from her history she appears to have been a favorite of hawks. Her bosses must have been getting a kickback to not check any of the garbage she was up to. A neo-con ( any ideologue) in a newsroom should be suspect. Heck right this minute she is admitting to be an ideologue. 73.149.116.253 (talk) 04:49, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Criticism

This wiki entry does not appear to be objective. Particularly the opening paragraph: "A number of stories she wrote while working for The New York Times later turned out to be inaccurate or completely false.[2][3][4][5]". Because this opening paragraph seems so biased (the four quotes are almost exclusively from left-wing sources) I did some checking of my own. Judith Miller is clearly right-wing and apparently it would have been just as easy to have added four quotes (and many more) from impressive right-wing sources that would have painted a totally different picture of Miller (see for example http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=3908 and http://progressive.org/?q=mag_wx0628b05).

The problem is that an opening statement such as the one above ("A number of stories she wrote...") creates the impression that there is some degree of consensus regarding the sloppiness or falsity of her work, which is certainly not the case. And just to be clear, I am not promoting my politics here, because my own opinions actually lean more to the left than to the right and I have no particular sentiments about Miller one way or the other. My only concern is for the prestige of Wikipedia as a reliable source of untainted information.

I therefore suggest that the opening statement be changed to: "While Miller is regarded in many circles as a conscientious journalist[add 3 or 4 sources] the accuracy of a number of stories she wrote while working for The New York Times has been called into question[2][3][4][5]." This seems to me less political, more accurate, and unbiased, while still giving legitimate voice to Miller's critics. I would suggest also that the rest of the article be similarly scrubbed. 89.139.123.223 (talk) 09:53, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say that what Miller recieved for her "her false reporting on WMD claims" was only criticism? I've changed the article to read so. --12.202.240.9 07:49, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I removed the first paragraph of the second section, which nigh-duplicates a sentence from the introduction and again blames Judith Miller for the invasion of Iraq. Later in the article there are more coherent criticisms of what she wrote and which things were proved to be false. Boojum 14:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

It's annoying when contributors interject their personal politics into a Wiki article. Therefore this whole article should be considered not factual and disregarded. Others and I have tried to correct the text to present just the facts and leave the rhetoric out of it, but High on a tree insists on reversing the changes. Wiki admin needs to monitor this more closely so that only accurate and well-documented information is posted, not liberal propaganda. Vraiblonde 17 July 2005 1:54

others noted that 10 of the 12... refers to this slate article. regards, High on a tree 19:40, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I took out "Miller's naive over-reliance on anonymous high-level sources, they say, biased her reporting and the testimony of the exiles has been called into serious doubt. Many have argued that the disastrous Iraq invasion might not have happened without Miller's reckless and misinformed reporting." from the intro. Blaming her for the invasion of Iraq seems a little excessive for an intro paragraph, as well as NPOV, even if "many" say it. Boojum 7 July 2005 21:40 (UTC)

Journalists are never above the law. However, they are absolutely entitled to their First Amendment Right. FREE JUDITH MILLER NOW!!! Kiwidude July 8, 2005 02:59 (UTC)

It has been proven elsewhere that Judith Miller is not a journalist but instead a mere propagandist in service to the Bush administration. Her propaganda has done nothing to promote the general welfare of the people of the United States, nor is her propaganda entitled to the protections offered by the first amendment regarding the abridgement of freedom of speech or of the press. END THE WAR NOW!!!

• If we are to uphold the civil liberties that this nation guarantees, the government MUST uphold each citizens rights. Whether Ms. Miller's writing is propaganda is debatable.(most likely not.) Ms. Miller has but herself on the line to maintain our values of democracy and freedom. Clearly, without freedom of the press, which Ms. Miller is entitled to, there will be NO democracy. Unlike doctors and lawyer who have restrictions of confidentiality, journalists don't. They are protected by the first amendment and let it continue. Ms. Miller should be no exception. FREE JUDITH MILLER NOW!! Kiwidude 23:30, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

The First Amendment, insofar as it is relevant to this discussion, guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. That means freedom to say and print what one wishes. In practice, the courts have not interpreted even those freedoms as absolute. (For example, one can be punished for shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater, revealing classified information, soliciting a crime, and publishing porn, and can be subjected to money damages for defamation.) Judith Miller isn't being punished for anything she said or printed. The First Amendment does not say anything about a reporter's right to conceal the names of people who talk to her. Nor is there any federal "reporter shield" statute (although many states have such laws). So Judith Miller has no federal right to keep silent when asked who illegally told her classified information. Nor, by the way, is this a case where a reporter keeps silent to protect a whistleblower who told her about government wrongdoing. This is apparently a case where a reporter is keeping silent to protect someone who smeared the wife of a whistleblower, thereby blowing her cover, committing a felony by revealing that information, wrecking the whistleblower's wife's career as an undercover CIA operative, possibly endangering her life and those of others she has worked with, and compromised our country's work in the area of interception and containment of weapons of mass destruction (which was Valerie Plame's area). The law does not and should not allow Judith Miller to withhold that information from the prosecutor. Krakatoa 01:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

• There have been many announcements/revealings of spies for the United States. Has that hurt our ability to gather intelligence NO! The situation with Ms. Miller has no impact.

You've got to be kidding me. Blowing the cover of covert operatives doesn't damage the ability of the US to gather intelligence? Please. At the absolute minimum, it requires a covert operative to move to non-covert operations, a new covert operative to be trained to take her place, and a new network of sources to be built from scratch. At worst, it can permanently derail investigations of vital national security importance. If I had my way, everyone involved in leaking this information or covering for the leakers, including Miller, would be indicted for treason. And in all cases I would seek the death penalty. Redxiv 01:05, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• "a new covert operative to be trained to take her place, and a new network of sources to be built from scratch."

You will be surprised with what you find about large-scale government training and sourcing. Things like Project Mockingbird do not simply go away--the government is too obsessive with its records for that. This article will make better sense to us all in the context of history from which (c.f. page) it is clear that Miller was an influential if somewhat duped actor in a scheme much greater than herself. Her highest-level source had introduced her to national security drills and alerts ongoing before 9/11 such as the OKC bioterror exercises, which positioned her as the source of much of the impetus for the now-almost-finished neoconservative war which is, thankfully, making far less sense historically and appearing less attractive in hindsight already and will continue to do so as sovereign deficits continue to expand dramatically in the mediasphere and in historical relevance. I can understand the desire to move forward from the past but there is a big missed lesson in understanding for those who do not read the article carefully and make the relevant connections as I am saddened to see by the people defending Plame in what is a valiant fight for fairness and accuracy over generalization. I am optimistic, though, that in perhaps only a decade it will be clear that Miller's series was opportunistically exploited by hawks in our modern-day Gulf of Tonkin 'Incident'. 24.251.197.135 (talk) 08:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Miller was arrested not for leaking, but for NOT leaking. She never used the info Libby gave her in any story, and never told anyone about it until having been imprisoned for months. How did her non-leak derail any "investigation of vital national security importance"? It would not have been treason if she had leaked it??? --Christofurio 13:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, due to that, it will never be entirely clear why this bad source was used so heavily but it is not at all a stretch to say that there was a desperate search for any war justification at the time. It's even possible that affairs were being directed at a high-level and Miller's witnessing this resulted in her being used to transmit this knowledge to the public (she did practice in OKC)--after all, if war was to be had, justification had to be found soon and perhaps Miller simply shared in the confidence of her sources (explaining nicely her only phrase justifying the reporting 'sloppiness' from this page). Inquiring minds want to know, but the Law of Kings is a potent force for corruption (of First Amendment decisions no less) that with time we will see as having encroached on our justice system. 24.251.197.135 (talk) 08:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

NPOV way of asking "why?"

Here's the question that I suggested remained unanswered after her release. It was deleted as POV for being an "op-ed". I'm not just responding by reverting but asking here, how to express the question "why" neutrally? A more detailed appearance of the same question appears in the New York Post editorial of October 1, 2005:

After 85 days in jail for refusing to identify a source before a grand jury and to turn over her notes to a federal prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame case, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was set free — and did exactly that on Friday.

There were conditions, of course: Her source, identified as Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, personally assured her she was no longer bound by their agreement of confidentiality.

Moreover, the notes she handed over were "edited." And the prosecutor agreed to limit the scope of his questioning.

But the end of this affair raises more questions than it answers.

Was all the hoopla really necessary?

patsw 22:42, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Add Washington Post's Dan Froomkin to the list of peers of Judith Miller asking "Why?" patsw 00:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Add the Powerline blog to the list of people asking "Why?" At this web site they have images of letters from the principals including Libby, Tate, and Abrams. patsw 03:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• This would be a very useful link if it were available.24.251.197.135 (talk) 08:57, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Add the Columbia Jorunalism Review to the list asking "Why?"

Qaddafi, the victim of a Judith Miller defamation

It has been alleged that in 1986 Miller defamed dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi, widely viewed as having been a major sponsor of terror, in articles she wrote on Libya, allegedly written under the auspices of Admiral John Poindexter of the Reagan administration.

Who made the allegation? What facts are behind this allegation? Verify or rm. patsw 00:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Second Grand Jury Appearance

My first update of Miller's second grand jury appearance. I'm going to update this article more fully later this morning after I read most recent sources.--FloNight 13:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

She's Toast

• http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak-Investigation.html
• Editor Says He Missed Miller ' Alarm Bells'

• http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/22/national/22paper.html
• Times Editor Expresses Regrets Over Handling of Leak Case

• http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/22/opinion/22dowd.html
• Woman of Mass Destruction
• By MAUREEN DOWD

Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, Judy Miller was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers.

It's been reported over and over by international news sources that Judith Miller is a shameless war monger. It takes the NY Times so many years to deal with it. ... After the death of tens of thousands Iraqi people and some U.S. soldiers. Judith Miller is among one of the war criminals and that's now for sure. Jayson Blair was simply nothing if you compare the damages. -- Toytoy 13:15, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

- No need to kick someone when they are down. Does anyone know if Audrey Gillan was the British reporter who served the same role as did Judy Miller? --JWSchmidt 20:51, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

No article for Audrey Gillan so far. -- Toytoy 01:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Audrey Gillan would like to be informed of how it was that she served the same role as Judith Millar? Evidence before slander, please.

• I started an article for Audrey Gillan. When I asked about "the British reporter who served the same role as did Judy Miller," I was thinking about thier roles in reporting on topics such as the 2001 anthrax attacks and the Iraq war. --JWSchmidt 01:15, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

All of the "Political Bickering" is destroying Wikipedia!

Wikipedia is supposed to be a online encyclopedia & not a political "sounding board"! Seems like when someone gets offended by what they hear on TV, they automatically look for that person on Wiki & post an opinion. Even though what they may state is true, it's not a "newsworthy" event. Over half of all listings for a politican or newsperson has a section named -Controversies-. Most of the time these so-called "Controversies" take up over 2/3rds of the entire listing for that person. In most cases they are of little or no real value because they were never really "newsworthy" events that made the major news media like CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC/MSMBC, BBC, FOX News, or the USA Today, but were just "Blog" statements! This is destroying Wiki as an encyclopedia as a source for information for "school age" kids. Knowone knows how the Judith Miller story will end.

I've tried in vain to correct & delete "opinionated" statements, but as soon as I did someone would say "I was posting SPAM" & change it back to the last post. Seems like there's a large group of people who have singled out Wiki to reflect their opinions. It's impossible for the management of Wikipedia to monitor the thousands of revisions that take place everyday. Could we just stick to the "relative facts" & watch our language. Remember, any 5 year old could access the words you post!!!! If you have a "Political Statement"...........save it for the "Blogs"!!!

Actually, all of the political bickering is making the political pages a mess... the rest of Wikipedia is just fine. Yelling about it isn't going to do any good... only a few are going to hear you and only a few of those are going to care... and then twice as many new people are going to join the next day and take up the same fight. These pages are going to be battle-grounds. It is an unavoidable fact with the current political polarization, 'news' reports seemingly from different realities, and fast growing popularity of Wikipedia. My suggestion is to go edit something else and stop back to the political issues once they have calmed down. Some kind of un-removable 'this page is a partisan battleground' tag might also be called for to let the general public know that certain pages just aren't reliable / encyclopedic. In six months Judith Miller will likely have faded back into obscurity and the page can be set right. --CBDunkerson 10:31, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

anthrax hoax victim

Apparently Miller was the only major media reporter to receive a fake anthrax letter in the fall of 2001. Real anthrax was sent to the National Enquirer, the New York Post, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, and the Senate offices of Democrats Daschle and Leahy. But fake anthrax was sent to Judith Miller — and apparently only her. Despite what is alleged in her entry, I have been unable to verify that any other major media outlet or journalist was a victim of an anthrax hoax in 2001. Isn't the proof in the reporting? Can anyone point me to another hoax of the time, or any prosecutions for the other (supposed) fake anthrax attacks on reporters or news outlets? Sandover 02:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I have revised the copy accordingly, and have squared Miller's entry with what is on anthrax hoax. Again, if anyone can offer any verification of other anthrax hoax victims working in the media in the fall of 2001, by all means, post them. I have looked and looked. Sandover 17:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Sandover, this article may be of interest to you. It suggests that Dick Cheney's mansion received a "mysterious letter" at roughly the same time. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11436302/site/newsweek/ Other articles mention that Cheney's staff, which presumably would include Judy Miller's friend Scooter Libby, began taking Cipro on September 11. Sofa King Monday, 2006-09-25 T 23:13 UTC

I added mention of Miller's pre-September 11 anthrax reporting, specifically an article she co-authored on September 4, 2001. There were other Miller-authored articles on bioweapons published in the NYT at roughly the same time, but regrettably the hoax mail makes a search for Miller's pre-attack reporting on bioweapons somewhat difficult. Sofa King Monday, 2006-09-25 T 22:40 UTC

What did Judith Miller want to quash?

On May 26, 2006, Judge Walton ruled on the motion including "For the reasons discussed above, this Court will grant reporter Judith Miller’s motion to quash...". This seems like it's significant. Perhaps there could be a section on the legal issues in the Grand Jury investigation here. Specifically, what it was that Miller requested to be quashed and why. Jeff Carr 01:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that was Libby's lawyers' request for her datebook, which the judge denied. I've added broad summary material only, mostly of her account in the New York Times last October.[1] Sandover 18:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Journalistic rights and responsibilities

The Miller case is cited by leftist groups as the primary reason for placinc the U.S. relatively low on a press freedom index (see Reporters Without Frontiers). Apparently reporting includes passing sensitive or secret security information to government enemies - which would be called spying in any other context.

Also, is there some law or constitutional principle that gives reporters the same rights (or duties) as priests and lawyers, to hide information about law-breaking? Can a reporter, for example, say, "I know who murdered John Doe but I won't tell anyone!" and then refuse to testify before a court or a grand jury? "He only told me because I promised not to tell anyone." Is this a valid defense?

If this is covered in a press freedom or confidential source article, then I apologize for belaboring the obvious. --Uncle Ed 20:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Neither the Constitution nor federal law grant reporters any legal right to conceal their sources from the courts. If subpoenaed, a reporter can and will be jailed if they refuse to reveal information that's pertinent to the case. As happened with Miller. In state courts, that's not always the case, as some states do have "reporter shield" laws. But in federal courts, nope. It's not a legal option. 71.203.209.0 02:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Um, Uncle Ed. I hate to burst your bubble, but Miller didn't do anything that any reasonable person could call spying. She didn't leak information. She wasn't even working on a story about Plame, which is why, as her notes show, she didn't bother to get make sure she had heard the name right. It was peripheral. How is the refusal to leak, spying? --Christofurio 02:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What she did do, however, was cover for someone who did leak classified information relevant to national security. While she might not be a traitor herself, in my book that makes her an accessory to treason. — Red XIV ^(talk) 07:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

You can write "your book" as you think best. Ed was speaking of "spying," and I don't see anything like that in Miller's conduct. It was her reluctance to be enlisted as a "spy" by the special prosecutor against Libby that got her into trouble. --Christofurio (talk) 18:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Guys just calm down a bit here. Judith Miller, whatever her views, was not a spy nor was she an accessory to treason (does that separate charge exist?). What she did was to protect her sources and she was charged with contempt of court for refusing to answer the grand jury's question. She is not the first journalist to go to jail for doing this either. She won't be the last. Protecting sources is not just some cute thing reporters say to keep you in the dark. Whether you think it's ethical or not, whistleblowers have an irregular function of keeping governments honest by drip feeding information to the media. Sometimes there is no other way. If whistleblowers thought they would be blown, this could never happen and the role of the media in keeping government toes to the line would be irrevocably damaged. That represents a massive threat to a free press. This is just part of an ongoing relationship between whistleblowers, journalists and the courts.Flanker235 (talk) 01:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Intro needs to be summarized

The intro needs to be condensed into about three paragraphs; it's way too long in its current state.--Gloriamarie 00:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Over 10 months later nothing has happened. It should not be necessary to wade through the entire article to find the fact you want. Apart from a short lead-in, headings should point the reader in the right direction. And no section should be too long without a header of its own. Jagdfeld (talk) 09:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Anthrax

"Two additional letters (with a higher grade of anthrax) were sent on October 9, 2001 to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in Washington. Twenty-two people were sickened; five died. The crime has never been solved."

It still hasn't been, in any generally-satisfactory sense. Still, shouldn't there be something here about the most recent developments? --Christofurio (talk) 00:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

'Covert' CIA operative?

I changed the phrase in the subject to: On October 1, 2004, federal Judge Thomas F. Hogan found Miller in contempt of court for refusing to appear before a federal grand jury, which was investigating who had leaked to reporters the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. There is no citation justifying the covert tag and it seems to confuse the facts. At most it could be said that they were investigating whether she was covert and who leaked her identity, or that they were investigating who leaked her identity, which the CIA considered secret or covert. My understanding is that it is unlikely Plame was defined as a covert agent under the relevnt criminal law which the grand jury was considering charges under, and since the covert status is the operative factor determining whether the criminal charges in this case would be proper, it should not be used in the manner it was without some citation or clarification that this doesn't mean neccesarily that she was covert under the law the grand jury was considering.--Δζ (talk) 12:56, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Pulitzer Prize Status

Ms. Miller was not ever awarded a Pulitzer Prize. She was on the New York Times Staff that was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer. See the Pulitzer award page here. I believe the article should be edited accordingly. 138.162.0.45 (talk) 13:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It was awarded to the staff in general, but it was awarded for this article for which Miller got the by-line credit. Here is a picture on the Pulitzer website of her accepting the prize. Distasteful though I find it, it's accurate to call her a Pulitzer prize winner. Raul654 (talk) 03:03, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Organization of article

I have tried to edit down and merge sections of the page that seemed redundant while retaining the relevant content. I think the result amounts to progress while being aware that it is imperfect and much of value may have been omitted. Please correct it—revert it altogether—if you have better to add.helio 02:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Source

• Foer, Franklin. "The Source of the Trouble." New York Magazine. May 21, 2005.
  • http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index1.html
  • http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index2.html
  • http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index3.html
  • http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index4.html

WhisperToMe (talk) 22:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Timeline and Historical Dates

"After her release on September 29, 2005, Miller agreed to disclose to the grand jury the identity of her source, Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.[citation needed]"

Is this or is this not accurate? 24.251.197.135 (talk) 08:13, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. Jafeluv (talk) 08:08, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

---

Judith Miller (journalist) → Judith Miller – Primary topic. Page views: journalist, philosopher, antiques. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 01:42, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Survey

• Support. If you google "Judith Miller" -wikipedia, the results are mostly about this subject. There is also a "Judith Miller Band" and an antiques blog, but we don't have articles about them. Kauffner (talk) 01:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
• Support Yes, clear primary topic. --BDD (talk) 20:38, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The lead is kind of weasel wordish

"Her coverage of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy.[1] A number of stories she wrote while working for The New York Times later were deemed to be inaccurate or simply false by her employers, and she resigned."

The issue is not that there was a debatable controversy. How about we cut to the chase

"Her New York Times coverage of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion were deemed to be inaccurate or simply false by her employers, and she resigned."

Basically, snip the middle out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.201.152.16 (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

NPOV-This article is completely one-sided.

This is the most one-sided, biased article I've read on the project in quite some time. It needs to be fixed or utterly stubbed. Many of the "sources" for the negative information are opinion pieces from HuffPo, Maureen Dowd, etc. This is completely unacceptable, particularly with regards to our policies regarding biographies of living persons. If this is not fixed soon, I will be taking the proverbial hatchet to this article, and cleaving a lot of the opinion-piece sourced material from it. LHM 17:29, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

• I've made some headway in making this article less coatracky. Still some work to do regarding balance, though, so I'm leaving the NPOV tag on it. LHM 19:32, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Renewed criticism

Occasioned by a Wall Street Journal op ed, there is fresh criticism with references by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity at https://consortiumnews.com/2015/04/07/judith-millers-blame-shifting-memoir/ and at http://crooksandliars.com/2015/04/judy-miller-hans-blix-bears-more Marbux (talk) 19:08, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

The late Tony Judt made some scathing criticisms of Ms Miller, her reporting and her role as a warmonger writer (and an uncritical Bush supporter) in conversation with Timothy Snyder, in their book Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012). He recalls how he questioned her WMD claims at a dinner party at Long Island, attended by many journalists, UN and US government bureaucrats and even George Soros, and Miller's aggressive and overbearing response. 83.254.138.177 (talk) 11:29, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned reference needs correction

The first two sentences of the third paragraph of the "Refusal to discuss source" paragraph read:

For her second grand jury appearance, Miller produced a notebook from a previously undisclosed meeting with Libby on June 23, 2003. This was several weeks before Wilson's New York Times editorial was published. This belied the theory that Libby was retaliating against Wilson for his Times editorial.

But nowhere in the preceding (or following) text of the article is "Wilson's New York Times editorial" discussed or identified, making this puzzlesome. The editorial was probably the one mentioned in this sentence of this version of the article:

According to a subpoena, Miller met with an unnamed government official, later revealed to be I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, on July 8, 2003, two days after former ambassador Joseph Wilson (the husband of Plame) published an Op-Ed in the Times criticizing the Bush administration for "twisting" intelligence to justify war in Iraq. Plame's CIA identity was divulged publicly in a column by conservative political commentator Robert Novak on July 14, 2003.

Which was located in the first paragraph of what has now become the "Refusal to discuss source" article, but has since been edited out to the extent it refers to the editorial. I'm posting this here after it was raised in this IP edit at BLPN. I don't have the knowledge about this article to work out how to correct the problem, though I do note that the only source listed in the third paragraph does not seem to support the material about the editorial, at least on a quick read-through, but my lack of knowledge may be causing me to overlook the support. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

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language changed to reflect that wmd in iraq were supposed by ms. miller

"her coverage of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program" presupposes existence of such a weapon's program spanning the duration of the period mentioned.

language changed to reflect miller's _supposition_ of this fact, leaving open the possibility of the existence or nonexistence of such weapons programs:

"her coverage of a supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program in Iraq"

if this language is further changed in future, please take care that it retains the suppositional (rather factual) character of any 'wmd in iraq' Alfred Nemours (talk) 07:52, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

elaborate on ms. miller's zionist credentials?

nearly all of this article concerns ms. miller's career post-2000.

back when i paid attention to her, in her pbs appearances in the late 1980s, for better or for worse, ms. miller was known as a formidable and persistent defender of the zionist cause.

as this article develops, i think it could gain much in the way of substantive improvements by expanding particularly on ms. miller's pre-2000 career, and on her coverage of israel. just a suggestion, take it for what it's worth. Alfred Nemours (talk) 09:08, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

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Hostility and bias rampant

This Wikipedia entry fairly reeks of unrestrained bias. By the second paragraph, we find: "Accused by, among others [sic], Edward Said, for a purported anti-Islamic bias in her writing, Miller became embroiled in controversy..."

By the next paragraph we're reading: "The New York Times determined several stories she wrote were inaccurate." However, when I check the cited source (which is not the New York Times itself, but a second party — always a red flag), one finds this: "Last week, on page A10, the [Times] published a note on its coverage, drafted by executive editor Bill Keller himself … however, the omission of Judith Miller’s name was conspicuous. [Quoting the Times:] 'Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated'.” The Wikipedia claim, in other words, is not borne out by the citation.

Then we immediately read a quotation from one Ken Silverstein talking about how leaving the Times was the end of Miller's career as a "respectable journalist." This goes to the question of authority. How relevant is Ken Silverstein's opinion of Judith Miller? It turns out the Mr. Silverstein has had several problems with journalistic respectability himself, having burned through several jobs amid accusations of questionable ethics and inaccurate reporting. (He now runs his own website, which he calls Washington Babylon.)

By the next paragraph we get to this sneering sentence: "In a book published in 2015, Miller attempted to convince people that reporting is difficult." And what is the citation for this unalloyed snark? Is it the book in question? No, it's a (heavily edited) YouTube video from the Comedy Channel, featuring comedian Jon Stewart as host of The Daily Show, which is a news satire program.

All of this before we even get to the contents proper of the article. I won't go on except to note that if a reader persists long enough, eventually (around ten paragraphs down) he'll finally learn that Miller was part of a news team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting — a fact that should have been in the first sentence given its notability. In sum, the piece stinks. It is embarrassing to even read such tripe.

NicholasNotabene (talk) 05:52, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

05:48, 25 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by NicholasNotabene (talk • contribs)

I added a POV tag to it. - Sdkb (talk) 23:40, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

So fix it then. That's how Wikipedia works. Famousdog (woof)(grrr) 14:07, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

First paragraph of intro lacking

Given that Judith Miller is by far best known for her reporting on Iraq in the run-up to the war, it seems improper that this fact isn't mentioned in the first paragraph of the lede. - Sdkb (talk) 01:22, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Deletion of unsourced characterization

@Chris troutman:, @Distelfinck: Miller wrote "My Story" published in 2015 and a Wall Street Journal response article to critics, about that book she authored to rehabilitate her reputation. In both, she defended her WMD reporting, as well as the inaccuracies which had been published on the front pages of the NY Times in runup to, and initial stages of, the allied invasion of Iraq. Ironically, she condemned alleged "cherry picking" by critics of her reporting published dozen years earlier, in her sarcastic WSJ piece. But in it, she actually and ironically cherry picked through facts involved, in an attempt to mitigate her culpability in the matter. I reviewed the situation extensively, including obtaining the WSJ's paywalled article, reading a considerable number of the 2003 and 2004 sources, repeatedly viewed the Jon Stewart/Daily Show interview she did contemporaneously with the publication of her book that Stewart had read, and posted a link to that video. Consequently I deleted the "broad consensus" contention, which was absent from the cited source. There was significant contemporary 2003 coverage that had questioned her reporting and her Chalabi-dependent assertions at the time, including in widely published reliable sources such as Le Figaro, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and in the U.S., the Knight-Ridder chain. I'd be happy to provide the 2015 WSJ piece to any requesting WP editors who PM me. Activist (talk) 11:48, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

What is this about? Is this to suggest further edits, to give a reason on past edits...? If this post is really about your deletion of the "unsourced characterization" as you say, then what's the point of your first four sentences in this post? If this is about several issues, I would suggest to split it into several talk sections next time, cause this is really confusing --Distelfinck (talk) 13:13, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I apologize for any confusion I might have inadvertently generated. Chris Troutman made a good faith deletion of my two edits and asked that further edits be discussed. In one of my edits I had noted that Miller hadn't been a victim of an anthrax attack, but rather a victim of a hoax, receiving a letter with harmless powder in it. You properly reverted that claim. Before my and your subsequent edits, the second asserted that Miller had said there was a "broad consensus"supporting the belief in the existence of then-current WMDs possessed by Saddam. I think you've sufficiently resolved that, though there wasn't unanimity amongst CIA experts. The previously characterized "consensus" wasn't true and she didn't even make that claim in the cited WSJ source. I just reviewed the Ahmed Chalabi article, about her main source, which I hadn't seen before. The discussion of his and the INC's role and that of the other primary source of disinformation, "Curveball" is well documented there. Activist (talk) 03:40, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Others probably don't tell you this, because they don't want to offend you, but you use way too much words. Your 2nd until 4th sentence in this comment could have been omitted. This is all information I know. Just cut to the point --Distelfinck (talk) 21:09, 26 January 2019 (UTC)