Do They Think They Will Be The Next Woodward and Bernstein?
By: Pam On: Jun/23/06 - 16 Comments
I am starting to wonder if that isn’t the motive behind the press leaking information that is detrimental to our National Security. The problem with that is, people are bombarded with 24/7 news coverage and we don’t remember your name..
With that being said, last night, news broke that the The New York Times and the LA Times, refused to sit on stories of how the Treasury Department and CIA have been tracking worldwide financial data, in order to track terrorists. Money, the key element to funding terrorism…So as of today, we have one more tool that is no longer secret to the terrorist.
That should give you a great feeling considering that just yesterday, the FBI took down a terror ring in Miami that had their eye set on the Sears Tower.
June 23, 2006 - 10:24 AM on June 23rd, 2006
pure and simple…treasonous.
June 23, 2006 - 11:54 AM on June 23rd, 2006
“The law enforcement official told The Associated Press the seven were mainly Americans with no apparent ties to al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations.”
Strange.
Sounds like the lasy half of Fight Club in a way; the brainwashing, the military-style training, the mission of blowing up a building…
I wonder when they’ll release more info on who these people are.
June 23, 2006 - 11:56 AM on June 23rd, 2006
June 23, 2006 - 12:03 PM on June 23rd, 2006
SF, instead of parroting anonymous officials, how about only qhoting named people who go on the record?
With the NYTimes, LATimes, and AP, anonymous “officials” are just the reporter saying something he can’t back up.
June 23, 2006 - 12:34 PM on June 23rd, 2006
You’re not a student of journalism, are you?
I can tell.
June 23, 2006 - 12:39 PM on June 23rd, 2006
Go to Michelle Malkin’s site and you can get an email address to the New York Times…let them know your feelings on their treasonous acts. Malkin posted a few of them…they are right on the money. Regardless who these 7 are in Miami, dangerous or not, the NYT has no excuse for once again spilling out secret information on how we are combatting terrorists. I am sure the other side of the aisle will back NYT up with the ole “the American people have a right to know” crap.
If we are hit again, the NYT will be partly responsible.
June 23, 2006 - 12:43 PM on June 23rd, 2006
SFL…obviously the NYT could take a few lessons in journalism themselves. Do they teach “Aiding the Enemy at a Time of War” in journalism school…their writers must have aced that course!
June 23, 2006 - 01:01 PM on June 23rd, 2006
5, I once was, SF, but in schools and TV stations that taught get the story right, get it from 1st hand witnesses, and NO anonymous sources. Also, writing false stories using anonymous sources was an immediate firing offense, not Fitzmas!
June 23, 2006 - 02:16 PM on June 23rd, 2006
Found this on the web…it’s very old, from `94, but makes good points for both sides of the deabte on the use of annon sources. Kind of interesting…
Defenders of confidential sources say they bring to light important stories that otherwise would never surface. If used carefully, they say, unnamed sources are a valuable tool.
“The job of a journalist, particularly someone who’s spent time dealing in sensitive areas, is to find out what really happened,” says author and Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. “When you are reporting on inside the White House, the Supreme Court, the CIA or the Pentagon, you tell me how you’re going to get stuff on the record. Look at the good reporting out of any of those institutions – it’s not on the record.”
But opponents of the practice argue that information from unnamed people further undermines journalism’s sagging credibility and is simply not worth the price.
“There’s not a place for anonymous sources,” says Allen H. Neuharth, founder of USA Today and chairman of the Freedom Forum. “I think there are a few major historical developments that happened in journalism – the Pentagon Papers, maybe Watergate – where anonymous sources had a more positive influence than a negative impact. But on balance, the negative impact is so great that we can’t overcome the lack of trust until or unless we ban them.”
and it goes on…
Using information from unidentified officials is simply a way of life in the nation’s capital, where spokespersons at many agencies routinely speak to journalists “on background.”
At the Pentagon every Tuesday and Thursday, an official gives an on-the-record briefing to defense reporters. “After the briefing is over the TV lights go off, AP says thank you and it’s over,” says David Wood, a Pentagon reporter for Newhouse News Service. “Then people accost the spokesman with the real questions and ask what’s really going on. The spokesman can only read from the cards and give the approved line. But after the briefing, he’ll talk on background” – with no names attached.
One legendary Washington anonymous source – although he ultimately wasn’t all that anonymous – was Henry Kissinger (see “The ‘Senior Official,’ ” November 1992). The former secretary of state was a master at manipulating the media, feeding headline-grabbing tidbits with the proviso that he be identified as a “senior official.” During his shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, Kissinger insisted on anonymity even though the information was reported by the press traveling with him and attributed to the “senior official on the plane.” On one of Kissinger’s sojourns, humorist Art Buchwald attributed information to a “high U.S. official with wavy hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a German accent.”
June 23, 2006 - 02:19 PM on June 23rd, 2006
link
June 23, 2006 - 03:16 PM on June 23rd, 2006
All this is irrelevant to the story. The question is should news outlets have the privilege of leaking top secret information to our enemies during a time of war, because “they” think it is in the best interest of the country, even when the president asks them not to?
I hope they open an investigation to find out who leaked the info to the NYT and LAT, and then lock them in prison with their sacred pulitzer prize and throw away the key.
June 23, 2006 - 03:46 PM on June 23rd, 2006
Leaking sensitive information during wartime…. They should be tried for TREASON and given a proper dirt nap.
June 23, 2006 - 04:22 PM on June 23rd, 2006
We’ve known that our government has been chasing the terror paper trail since before 9/11. Nothing earth shattering here…
And leaking sensitive info during war time? This can be a positive thing like in the instance of the Pentagon Papers being leaked in `71.
June 23, 2006 - 05:51 PM on June 23rd, 2006
OMG,,, I should have know you would defend this.:???:
June 23, 2006 - 06:44 PM on June 23rd, 2006
Folks, I’m not surprised by any of this. I have heard many self described liberals on talk radio actively advocating that the US lose the war against the terrorists. SF, that doesn’t necessarily include you, but you have to admit that there are a lot of liberals out there who, though they deny it, act and speak in a manner that clearly denotes that they WANT the US to lose the war on terror. They are so adamantly anti Bush that sending the world spiraling into the abyss of a religious/cultural war would be a small price to pay to soothe their wounded egos over losing the 2000 and 2004 elections. They, like the communist sympathizers before them, refuse to admit that, even if the current administration may be wrong, it is still far better than what will result should we fail in this war. They style themselves to be the descendents of the Vietnam war protestors but, unlike when we pulled out of Vietnam and left millions of south east Asians to die at the hands of the Communists, this enemy is more than happy to bring the fight to our country. The liberals will try to talk to these Islamofascists up until the moment when the Islamofascists slit their throats.
June 23, 2006 - 09:18 PM on June 23rd, 2006
FRANK RICH is a taritor and the New York Times is a traitors paper:mad: