Glenn Greenwald: Joe Klein is the new Judy Miller

[StefanX]

Improvement in Iraq: Trust Joe Klein and his secret sources
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/24/klein/index.html

Is there a single principle of good journalism which Klein, in his short piece, failed to violate?

Klein writes: A senior U.S. military official told me -- confirming reports from several other sources -- that there have been "a couple of days recently during which there were zero effective attacks and less than 10 attacks overall in the province..."

As always, the very idea of granting anonymity to government sources to do nothing other than repeat pro-government claims is both manipulative and moronic on its face. What possible journalistic value could there ever be in cloaking someone with anonymity in order to say something that Tony Snow would happily say, and does say, every day from the White House Press Briefing Room?

That was one of the principal though-still-unlearned lessons of the Judy Miller Saga: when a journalist does nothing but mindlessly repeat the claims of government sources which are completely consistent with -- or designed to bolster -- the claims being made by the administration itself out in the open, the journalist is doing nothing more than turning himself into a willing propaganda tool. Again, what conceivable journalistic justification is there for granting anonymity to government sources to recite the Government Line?

===

Joe Klein is about as relevant as Judy Miller now.

[yourout]

1. P to P

Paid to Parrot

[Phredicles]

2. Even if so, there have also been plenty of awful, bloodsoaked days lately;

In short, SFW?

[Gabi Hayes]

3. jesus....Klein is about 1 Friedman Unit away from Miller at this point.

''Joe Klein is the living incarnation of American "conventional wisdom" -- a spineless, slavish watcher of polls who has no problem whatsoever denying today what he said yesterday. ''

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/47752/

PLEASE read this excoriation of the ineffably corrupt Klein