NYT Editor Bill Keller Takes On The Bush Admin & Freedom Of The Press

[kpete]

Today Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times has responded to criticism sent for their reporting on the government’s examination of international banking records.


Letter From Bill Keller on The Times's Banking Records Report
June 25, 2006
The following is a letter Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, has sent to readers who have written him about The Times's publication of information about the government's examination of international banking records:

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror (June 23, 2006)I don't always have time to answer my mail as fully as etiquette demands, but our story about the government's surveillance of international banking records has generated some questions and concerns that I take very seriously. As the editor responsible for the difficult decision to publish that story, I'd like to offer a personal response.

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.) Some comes from readers who have considered the story in question and wonder whether publishing such material is wise. And some comes from readers who are grateful for the information and think it is valuable to have a public debate about the lengths to which our government has gone in combatting the threat of terror.

It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.

The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves national security, and especially national security in times of war. I've only participated in a few such cases, but they are among the most agonizing decisions I've faced as an editor.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/business/media/25keller-letter.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Rose Siding]

1. It's pitiful that an editor feels the need to explain the press' function

Maybe he was writing to Crashcart. It's a cinch he wouldn't pass that weighty task off to the ombudsman. Though, I guess I'm glad to know he remembers some of what he's supposed to be doing. Now, cocktail weenies around!

[spag68]

2. press functions

The function of the press is something these rethugs obviously missed in 10th grade civics class. Oh I forget, they don't teach civics anymore, have to keep up with those no child left behind standards.

[fishwax]

3. the press does not answer to the president

well, at least, it doesn't have to.

In my opinion, the NYT helping to trump-up the case against Iraq during the build-up to war is a much more dangerous development than publishing important information about what our government is doing against the will of the secret-keeper-in-chief.

[itzamirakul]

4. I'm afraid I have to disagree...Under this administration the press

has been "bought off," it has been threatened (as is happening in this case), and it has been "appropriated" by adding their own news sources to write false stories for public consumption.
So I believe that for the most part, the American press DOES answer to this President and does the bidding of the current administration.

I do not deny that the NYT has helped stimulate war fever by either printing stories that promoted aggression or by NOT printing stories that would have shown the public how Bushco is lying. I am not looking to excuse them for this rotten journalism and I have lost a great deal of respect for that paper. But I WILL give credit where credit is due. And I do appreciate knowing that the government is secretly collecting personal data against its citizens.

[fishwax]

6. hence my qualification that

"well, at least, it doesn't have to (answer to the president)."

The press in the last five years has rolled over almost as a force of habit.

NYT in the buildup to Iraq = journalistic malpractice

NYT alerting the public to secret govt programs to monitor american citizens--now that's meeting the essential function of the fourth estate. And for that, they don't owe the president a goddamn thing, least of all an explanation.

:)

[WiseButAngrySara]

5. A free press is an "essential ingredient"? I wonder how many in

government and in the media have actually read the constitution and the Federalist Papers. I just can't imagine why such an explanation of "freedom of the press" is even necessary in a democracy, as that is very much a part of what defines it.

k(pete)nr!