Could the New York Times have prevented 9/11 by publishing information and material it had?

That is what is alleged in an Alternet article referenced by Attywood.

Why didn't the information make the NY Times? because Judih Miller was too busy writing a book to report what could have been the biggest story of her career.

At the time I also had had a book coming out. Steve, Bill Broad and I were co-authors of a book about biological terrorism. So we were working flat out on that book trying to meet our deadline. I was desperately trying to get my arms around this series that we were trying to do on Al Qaida. I was having a lot of trouble because the information was very hard to come by. There was a lot going on. I was also doing biological weapons stories and homeland security stories. And in Washington, if you don't have a sense of immediacy about something, and if you sense that there is bureaucratic resistance to a story, you tend to focus on areas of less resistance.

While I don't agree with all the conclusions in the articles, i cannot help but agree with this.

So this is now the third time that the timing and flow of a news article with major impact on the electorate and the American political debate was affected by journalists working on a book, and the conflict that posed with their responsibility to newspaper readers. The others are Bob Woodward's withholding of information about the CIA-Valerie Plame case he uncovered during his book research, and James Risen's warrantless wiretapping scoop, which was finally published in the Times after he finished writing a book on the same subject.

There's got to be a better system here. In theory, we think that newspaper reporters writing books is a good thing, certainly for the career of the reporter and usually for the reading public. But must the public's right-to-know be a casualty, time and time again?

That said, I'd add this -- in the case of the Risen story -- must US national security be compromised to pump -up book sales for second-rate hack rporters at once great American newspapers?

Posted by: Greg at 10:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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