All The News That's Fit

Dotty Lynch Examines 'Times Bashing' And Gets In On The Act

(CBS) 
The decision by the Bush folks to launch an attack on the liberal press last week reeked of old age. Nattering nabobs of negativism, the famous Safire phrase which was written for Vice President Spiro Agnew’s blistering attack on the press in 1969 was their way, then and now, to get back on the offensive and rile up the conservative base. But, the fact that the New York Times believes it has to defend its concern about terrorism is an indication that they are taking the attacks more seriously than they need to.

The Times decision to print the story was not done lightly and it has stuck to its guns in the midst of the onslaught. The paper is an important institution and sets a standard for the rest of the media. As Dan Okrent, the first ombudsman for the New York Times writes in his book "Public Editor #1," “The Times is our one truly essential newspaper. The sheer ambition of its daily task is unmatched anywhere in journalism.” Okrent spent eighteen months at the Times being attacked inside and out for his columns but says he was willing to do this — and even enjoyed it — because the Times matters.

While some of the criticism may have been thoughtful, the tone and the target smack of election year politics. Democrat Scott Lilly, in an article on the liberal Center for American Progress Website criticized the New York Times' decision to publish the story but says it is another Times, the conservative Washington Times that has done the most serious damage with security leaks — and notes that conservatives haven’t uttered a peep of criticism about them. Lilly says that the NSA has routinely leaked to Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, but adds that “the most famous security breach by the Washington Times did not involve Gertz but another reporter. It was the Aug. 21, 1998, disclosure that the U.S. was monitoring Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone conversations. Shortly thereafter bin Laden stopped using the phone, and the quality of U.S. intelligence on al Qaeda took a precipitous nosedive.”

Keller acknowledged that “beating up on the Times is red meat for the conservative base,” but took a generally dispassionate approach to the topic of the attacks. The Times, like much of mainstream journalism, is trying to mend its old arrogant ways but the paper doesn’t need to defend its commitment to fight terrorism.

The Times sets the standard. They did the right thing in publishing the story not just because they have the first amendment on their side but because they have an obligation to the public to hold the government accountable. That’s the Fourth of July message that Keller should be proud to shout from the rooftops.

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, my father ended his career as a pressman for the New York Times and I was a member of the CBS News-New York Times polling consortium from 1985-2005. Reading and bashing the Times are two of my favorite pastimes.