FAIR
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 17, 2006
12:46 PM
|
CONTACT: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
212-633-6700
|
| |
|
NY Times' Nonresponses to FAIR Alert
|
| |
|
WASHINGTON - January 17 - on the NSA's secret wiretapping for over a year, and executive editor
Bill Keller's refusal to answer questions about that decision. In the
days that followed, FAIR activists called and emailed Keller's office,
and several received responses from Keller and his assistant, Diane
Ceribelli.
None of the responses provided any new information, and some of them
included patronizing or disrespectful remarks. The email responses were
nearly identical; Keller and Ceribelli copied the full text of Keller's
December 16 statement regarding his decision—the statement the FAIR Action Alert
characterized as "wholly unsatisfying"—prefaced by the following brief
introduction:
"A number of readers have written to ask about the Times'
decision to disclose the president's secret order authorizing certain
domestic wiretaps without a warrant. Some readers are concerned that
reporting about this program might jeopardize government efforts to
prevent terrorist attacks. Others wonder why we did not publish the
story when we first learned of it.
It is impossible to fully answer those questions without getting into
specifics of when and how we learned what we learned. That would entail
violating pledges of confidentiality that are important to our ability
to continue reporting on sensitive subjects of national interest.
We can say the following:..."
The responses then repeat the Keller statement of December 16, already discussed at length in the Action Alert.
Some of these emails were prefaced with hostile comments: "I doubt
you're interested in an explanation, but…I'll give it to you anyway,"
Keller's assistant wrote to one activist. "You can read into it any
conspiracy theory you want." And some closed with statements like "I
doubt you've even read [the Times story]."
In response to a message titled "Glad I'm Not a Subscriber to the NYT," which noted that the sender had read Vanity Fair's critique of the Judith Miller affair (1/06),
Keller himself retorted, "It's interesting to note that you don't read
the paper—but, based on a magazine article, and FAIR, you can make all
sorts of judgments about journalistic integrity." Surely Keller is
aware that his paper has millions more readers than subscribers—NYTimes.com
boasts of having more than 21 million readers worldwide. But even if
the letter-writer were not a reader of the paper, the idea that one
cannot derive a valid opinion from secondary sources would seem to call
into question the very idea of the New York Times, which is in the business of telling readers about things that they didn't experience firsthand.
One activist who called Keller's office reported that Ceribelli's
initial response to his concerns was, "So what are you going to do,
sue?" and that she repeatedly accused FAIR of having "an agenda," as if
to thereby discount the caller's criticisms. In a follow-up email,
Ceribelli explained that "the 'sue' remark was in jest" and apologized
"if my humor was out of order."
The attitude suggested by such remarks towards the readers the Times serves is troubling, as is the refusal to answer any of the questions
raised in the FAIR alert (questions that could certainly have been
addressed without jeopardizing any "pledges of confidentiality"): Why
did the Times accept government assurances that the program "raised no legal questions," rather than seeking independent opinions? Would the Times have published the story had Risen not been putting out a book? What other revelations from Risen's book did the Times refuse to publish?
Times public editor Byron Calame wrote (1/1/06) that he submitted a list of 28 questions (which has now expanded to 35), and that Keller refused to answer a single one. Times readers—and the public in general—deserve to know more about why such a crucial story was withheld for so long.
ACTION: If you haven’t contacted Keller's office yet, tell him
that his December 16 statement is an unsatisfactory response to the
unanswered questions remaining about his decision to hold the wiretap
story. If you've already contacted Keller, take your complaints to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
CONTACT:
Bill Keller
Executive Editor, New York Times
212-556-7799
executive-editor@nytimes.com
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Publisher, New York Times
212-556-3588
publisher@nytimes.com
### |
|
Printer Friendly Version
E-Mail This Article
