Little Miss Run-Amok

By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet. Posted October 17, 2005.

Of all the astonishing events in the Judith Miller/New York Times chapters of Plamegate, perhaps the most revelatory is the way Miller described herself and her activities within the paper's supposedly staid, controlled newsroom.

As noted in the paper's own long-awaited explanation of the affair, Miller called herself "Miss Run Amok."

"'I said, 'What does that mean?'" recalled former investigative editor Douglas Frantz, now managing editor at the Los Angeles Times. "And she said, 'I can do whatever I want.'"

And so she did, time and again, according to the Times' own coverage, "as the newspaper's leaders, in taking what they considered to be a principled stand, ultimately left the major decisions in the case up to Ms. Miller, an intrepid reporter whom editors found hard to control."

• Editors like Frantz' predecessor Stephen Engelberg, who damned Miller with faint praise, remarking, "Like a lot of investigative reporters, Judy benefits from having an editor who's very interested and involved with what she's doing."
• Editors like onetime foreign editor Roger Cohen, who said, "I told her there was unease, discomfort, unhappiness over some of the coverage ... There was concern that she'd been convinced in an unwarranted way, a way that was not holding up, of the possible existence of W.M.D."
• Editors like managing editor Jill Abramson, who when asked what she regretted about the Times' handling of the Miller matter, answered, "The entire thing." (Abramson also decried the fact that the paper's news coverage of the Plamegate affair had been "constrained" and coldly refuted Miller's assertion that she had "made a strong recommendation to my editor" that an article be pursued, but "was told no." Abramson, Washington bureau chief at the time, said Miller never made any such recommendation.)
• Even editors like Times top dog Bill Keller, who "in one of his first personnel moves," told Miller that she could no longer cover Iraq and weapons issues. Even so, Keller told his own reporters, "She kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm."

So much so, apparently, that Miller -- who had been given Pentagon clearance to see secret information -- wasn't permitted to discuss some of the more sensitive items with her editors, who had no such clearance.

Miller admitted to the "Miss Run Amok" remark but told the Times she must have meant it as a joke, adding, "I have strong elbows, but I'm not a dope." That much at least seems clear. So too does the fact that her friend in high places, Times publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger -- who told his own paper "This car had her hand on the wheel because she was the one at risk" -- not only allowed but enabled and encouraged her unusual behavior.

Sulzberger also regularly urged editorial page editor Gail Collins to devote space to Miller's plight. Asked whether he had any regrets about the editorials, Sulzberger said no. "Judy deserved the support of the paper in this cause -- and the editorial page is the right place for such support, not the news pages," Sulzberger said. Miller added that the publisher's support was invaluable. "He galvanized the editors, the senior editorial staff," she said. "He metaphorically and literally put his arm around me."

Meanwhile, however, the Times' news reporting on the Miller case became ever more "constrained," to employ Abramson's term. Some Times reporters said their editors seemed reluctant to publish articles about certain aspects of the case. Richard W. Stevenson and other reporters in the Washington bureau wrote an article in July about the role of Vice President Cheney's senior aides, but it was not published. Stevenson said, "It was taken pretty clearly among us as a signal that we were cutting too close to the bone, that we were getting into an area that could complicate Judy's situation."

This and other articles by Rory O'Connor are available on his blog.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Media and Technology! Sign up now »