New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane wrote a response (of a sort) to the criticisms that the paper's reporting on Iranian missiles was fundamentally flawed. It's hard to believe that his column was meant be taken seriously.

To review: The Times published a story, based on a WikiLeaks cable, on November 29 alleging that Iran possesses powerful missiles with "the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe." The Times kept the cable off its website, but it was available on the WikiLeaks site. The cable showed that these were not facts, but U.S. claims--and weak ones at that, to the point where doubts existed as to whether the kind of missiles Iran had supposedly purchased from North Korea even existed.

The Washington Post wrote a piece (12/1/10) that cast considerable doubt on the Times' account. (The Post pointed out that the U.S. position was apparently based on a German newspaper article that did not fully corroborate the U.S. claims the Times was touting.) That was followed by a Times article (12/3/10) headlined "Wider Window Into Iran's Missile Capabilities Offers a Murkier View," which hinted at some of the weaknesses in the case--the ones the Times didn't see fit to report the first time. For a useful comparison, compare the definitive headline of the  original story: "Iran Fortifies Its Missiles With the Aid of North Korea." FAIR issued an Action Alert (12/1/10) and a follow-up (12/3/10) urging activists to ask Brisbane to address the problems in the Times' coverage.

So now to Brisbane's column. Here is what he wrote about the incident:

United States officials believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government obtained so-called BM-25 missiles from North Korea, enabling Iran to extend its range enough to strike Western Europe or Moscow. This development largely explains the Obama administration's willingness to shift its missile defense strategy in Europe.

But wait, other news organizations have now weighed in to say the Times' coverage of the BM-25 missiles was misleading, that other authorities have cast strong doubt on whether such missiles even exist. That leads me to the further point: Publication isn't necessarily a short hop to the full truth. It is sometimes only a first step. But it is the essential first step in a process that has to start before the marketplace of news and information can establish the facts.

Read those last three sentences again. He is saying (without really saying it) that the Times' publication of an erroneous article was commendable, "the essential first step in a process that has to start before the marketplace of news and information can establish the facts."

I guess you could say the same thing about the Times' infamous pre-war "scoop" on Iraq's aluminum tubes. It was totally wrong, but other news outlets--including the Washington Post--published articles that accurately conveyed the doubts about the bogus intelligence the Times was touting. So, yes, the Times is performing a service, in the sense that other reporters get the opportunity to demonstrate how poorly the Times is covering important news stories.

Brisbane asked: "The real question should be: Are Times readers and Americans at large better informed on these issues because of the stories?" In this case, the answer is obviously no. But somehow he arrived at the opposite conclusion.

"Julian Assange and his cronies, in their effort to hinder our war efforts, are creating a hit list for our enemies by publishing the names of our human intelligence sources.... I simply will not stand idly by as they become death targets because of Julian Assange. Let me be very clear, WikiLeaks is not a whistleblower website and Assange is not a journalist."

-- Sen. John Ensign (R.-Nevada) introducing an anti-WikiLeaks bill that would forbid the disclosure of the names of intelligence agents and informants

Funny, I thought our legal traditions generally frowned on the notion that powerful government officials, particularly members of Congress, get to  declare who is and isn't a journalist?

Funnier still, I don't recall similar umbrage from Ensign and his GOP colleagues when White House staffers on a  political vendetta repeatedly disclosed the identity of a covert CIA official.

Oh, but here's something (Gannett News Service, 7/15/05) : Following the Bush White House's Valerie Plame scandal, Ensign and most of his GOP colleagues voted against Harry Ried’s bill that would have revoked the security clearance of any federal employee who disclosed classified information.

New York Times (12/3/10):

Mr. Karzai first burst onto the international stage in the style of Che Guevara, slipping over the Afghan border from Pakistan in 2001 as United States forces pounded the Taliban, before being installed by the West. President George W. Bush invited him to his first State of the Union speech after September 11, 2001, where Mr. Karzai sat in the audience as a symbol of heroes who emerged from the terrorist attacks.

Yep, just like Che--you remember when he was installed into power by the U.S., and then invited to the State of the Union address.

In today's Washington Post (12/2/10), in the news article "Deficit Commission Sets Ideology Aside," reporters Lori Montgomery and Brady Dennis explain why the commission is not ideological:

Confronted with a deficit-reduction plan loaded with political dynamite, members from both parties set aside ideological orthodoxy at least briefly, sparking hope that their work could ignite a serious effort to reduce government debt and spare the nation from a European-style fiscal crisis.

But the notion that the deficit is one of the most pressing issues facing the country-- "The Moment of Truth" is the title of the commission's report--is profoundly ideological to begin with.

Though the commission and the Post reporters treat the necessity of  reducing the deficit as a sort of universally understood truth, many economists do not agree, arguing that the spending cuts that deficit-cutting would entail would further decrease demand in an already demand-starved economy.

By embracing deficit-cutting ideology to the exclusion of the views of many dissenting experts, instead of showing  that the commission has put aside ideology, the Post reminds once again how deeply  ideological our corporate media can be.

The lead of the New York Times story today (12/2/10) on the FCC's new internet plan:

The plan from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to ensure an open and neutral Internet drew mixed reviews on Wednesday from consumer advocates and Internet service providers, presenting the agency with an uncertain way forward as it considers new broadband regulation.

Of course, there are many who think the plan most assuredly does not "ensure an open and neutral Internet"--leading to some decidedly unmixed reviews.  See the response from Free Press president Josh Silver, for instance: "FCC Chairman Announces Fake Net Neutrality Proposal."

In an unrelated bonus, the Times offers a novel explanation for relying on an anonymous source:

Now, Mr. Genachowski thinks he has found a way around the court's ruling, according to a senior FCC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the chairman's proposal was subject to change.

Well, if that's the standard for granting anonymity--which would seem to violate Times policy--then sources can only be named when discussing events and policies that will never change. Like the Times' use of anonymity to shield the powerful from accountability, apparently.

Today (12/2/10) the New York Times has another report based on the latest WikiLeaks cables. The focus is on U.S. policy toward the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and the upshot is that diplomats based there exercised little to no scrutiny of the claims made by Georgian government regarding South Ossetia and Russia. The conflict there led eventually to a brief war in 2008, which was often inaccurately portrayed in U.S. media as unprovoked Russian aggression against a U.S. ally. The Times reports:

The cables show that for several years, as Georgia entered an escalating contest with the Kremlin for the future of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two breakaway enclaves out of Georgian control that received Russian support, Washington relied heavily on the Saakashvili government's accounts of its own behavior. In neighboring countries, American diplomats often maintained their professional distance, and privately detailed their misgivings of their host governments. In Georgia, diplomats appeared to set aside skepticism and embrace Georgian versions of important and disputed events.

By 2008, as the region slipped toward war, sources outside the Georgian government were played down or not included in important cables. Official Georgian versions of events were passed to Washington largely unchallenged.

The last cables before the eruption of the brief Russian-Georgian war showed an embassy relaying statements that would with time be proved wrong.

The conventional storyline at the time was that Georgia was attacked by South Ossetian forces, and thus forced to retaliate, which brought a Russian onslaught. The U.S. embassy's line--that the Times says "would with time be proved wrong"--was echoed in the media, as FAIR documented at the time. There was little skepticism shown toward Georgian claims, or its shelling of civilian areas of South Ossetia (which Russia pointed to as a justification for its military intervention).

The fact that U.S. diplomats and U.S. media were mostly in step is not a coincidence. It reminds me of that Karl Kraus quote: "How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print."

In this case, the WikiLeaks cables provide the basis for a useful corrective. And anyone who thinks the WikiLeaks cables mostly show that U.S. diplomats are doing good work should note this story as an example of just the opposite.

They don't show--at least in any significant way, with the caveat that thousands of e-mails still remain to be released--the U.S. government seriously misleading its allies. They don't show unauthorized war, fraudulent procurement practices or unexpected assassination. They don't show America forming significant alliances with sworn enemies or visiting unexpected deceit on friends.
--James Rainey on the "dearth of scandalous behavior" in the WikiLeaks material (L.A. Times, 12/1/10)

How good do you have to be to qualify as good? I haven't killed anybody. See, that's good, right? I haven't committed any felonies. I didn't start any wars. I don't practice cannibalism. Wouldn't you say that's pretty good?
--Calvin (Scientific Progress Goes "Boink")

If a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail because of a leaked cable, this entire, anarchic exercise in "freedom" stands as a human disaster. Assange is a criminal. He's the one who should be in jail.
--Joe Klein, Swampland (12/1/10)

Actually, Julian Assange didn't leak anything--he can't, because he didn't have access to classified documents. Someone (or someones) who did have such access leaked those documents to Assange's WikiLeaks, which, as a journalistic organization, made them available to the world, both directly and through other media partners.

This distinction, which is widely ignored in commentary on WikiLeaks, is actually quite important, because the ethical obligations of a government official with a security clearance are quite different from those of a media outlet. An official makes a promise to protect classified information, and should break that promise only when the duty to keep one's promises is outweighed by the public interest in disclosing wrongdoing. Journalists, on the other hand, are not in the business of protecting secrets, and should have a general presumption in favor of informing the public unless disclosure would cause specific foreseeable harms. The two ethical situations are pretty much opposite.

To treat Assange as a leaker when he is, in fact, a journalist is not only morally confusing, it's quite dangerous to journalists in general. If the government can declare Assange to be spy or a terrorist because he's published classified documents he's received, every investigative journalist who does the same thing is in deep trouble.

FAIR has a new Action Alert here about the New York Times and its Iran missiles story this week. If you're writing to the paper, please leave a copy of your letter in the comments section.

As Peter Hart noted earlier, New York Times political reporter Matt Bai has a piece today (12/1/10) critical of Barack Obama for being "loath to publicly disown his base." Bai writes of Obama: "Since he isn't willing to break publicly with liberals, independent and conservative voters tend to see him as a tool of the left."

You know, when your chief of staff refers to progressives as "fucking retarded," your press secretary denounces the "professional left" and your senior adviser says that such critics are "insane";  when your vice president tells the left to "stop whining" and you yourself urge them to "wake up"--I'd say you've broken rather publicly with liberals.

Presumably all this hippie-bashing is mainly done for the benefit of journalists like Matt Bai.  It's a shame he wasn't paying attention.

New York Times reporter Matt Bai uses the debt commission (12/1/10) to ask whether Barack Obama will finally stand up to the liberal base of the Democratic party. As the headline puts it, "Debt-Busting Issue May Force Obama Off Fence."

You see, in Bai's world, Obama was never much of a Clinton-style "triangulator," which is a big problem:

Part of the contrast Mr. Obama sought to draw with Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign was that you would never catch him triangulating against his friends for political gain. It was a point of pride for Mr. Obama that he would have no so-called Sister Souljah moments, even when he vehemently disagreed with liberals.

The problem with this stance, two years into his presidency, is that it seems to have put Mr. Obama in something of a box. Since he isn't willing to break publicly with liberals, independent and conservative voters tend to see him as a tool of the left. And since he generally won't do exactly what the left wants him to do, he ends up with very little gratitude from his own party.

Yes, except for escalating the Afghan War, blinking on the tax cut debate, doing nothing on card check or immigration, announcing a pay freeze for federal workers, taking a weak position on climate change, failing to close Guantanamo, leaving intact most of Bush's "war on terror" policies and junking the public option, Bai is right--Obama has never really told the party base to stuff it.

And because this is a Matt Bai article, he feels obligated to write this:

The national debt is near the top of any list of voter concerns at the moment.

ANY poll? The first one I found, from CBS News (11/11/10), found 4 percent of respondents thought the debt was the first order of business for the next Congress--leading Times columnist Paul Krugman to write a blog post (11/14/10) headlined, "No, Really--Nobody Cares About the Deficit."

And as we pointed out a few months ago, the Times news section arrived at a different conclusion on September 16:

The economy and jobs are increasingly and overwhelmingly cited by Americans as the most important problems facing the country, while the deficit barely registers as a topic of concern when survey respondents were asked to volunteer their worries.

Are Times factcheckers allowed to skip Matt Bai's articles?