Not to NYT: Serve Your Readers, Not Yourselves

1. What I took away from the package:
   
   1) When push comes to shove, the New York Times will
   put its own interests above those of its readers.
   (Reporters pushed ideas for covering the story and
   Keller shot them down).
   
   2) Equivocating aside, Miller almost certainly lied to
   her editors. (When they asked the DC bureau is anyone
   was the recipient of Plame leaks).
   
   3) What motivates Miller, I cannot say. But if
   restoring her credibility was one reason for heading
   to jail, this whole thing has done more harm than good
   on that front. She said she discussed
   Plame/Flame/Wilson with other sources, but can't
   recall who or when? Please...The first mention of
   "Flame" was in the same notebook as the Libby
   interview notes, but not the same section? Well, then,
   what section WERE they in?
   
   4) Keller seems like a decent guy, but there's a
   willful ignorance on the part of Times management in
   this thing that's inexcusable. From a reporter's
   perspective, getting unqualified support from the
   bosses is a beautiful thing. But again, that worked
   out better for Miller than it ultimately did for the
   readers. Considering this is a reporter who was at the
   center of the paper's extensive (albeit soft)
   "correction" for its flawed WMD reporting, Keller
   would have been perfectly justified in supporting her
   while ALSO pressing for more details about her
   sources/interviews.
   
   5) I won't dismiss the time she spent in jail. Maybe
   she thinks it was for the greater good. But she's
   pushing the martyr angle a little too hard, me thinks.
   There's an example of a place more trying than that
   Virginia detention center where your fellow
   journalists are risking their lives to report the
   news. It's called the Baghdad bureau.