Reportage Medialog

While Judith Miller has spent her first night in jail the media are scratching their collective heads trying to work out exactly what is going on in this case and who talked to whom about what.

Did Robert Novak testify? Novak, the journalist who actually broke the story of Palme’s CIA identity, claiming two senior Bush administration officials as his sources, has refused to say whether he has testified to the Fitzgerald grand jury or not. One can only assume, given he is not facing jail time, that he has.

Was Karl Rove the source? Rove is the guy many people believe to have planted the stories and he pointedly refused to answer any questions about his involvement yesterday. This no-comment, non-denial immediately put him at the top of everyone’s list as the source.

Who was Miller’s source? Fitzgerald claimed in the Miller and Cooper case that the two reporters had at least one common source and that that source had signed a waiver. Neither reporter felt this was good enough reason to talk, presumably assuming that the waiver was general and coerced. However Cooper agreed to testify at the last minute because he was contacted directly by his source and given permission to testify. This would seem to indicate that Miller’s source is different.

Why does Fitzgerald want Miller’s source so desperately? If Fitzgerald has Novak and now Cooper and presumably under oath testimony from administration officials why is Miller’s testimony so crucial? Some have speculated that Fitgerald may need confirmatory testimony, some even that Fitzgerald is now not investigating the original crime of disclosing Palme’s identity but has moved on to trying to nail someone for perjured testimony.

What about Miller’s story? The irony of all this is that Novak and Cooper, who actually wrote stories about Palme, are free while Miller who didn’t write anything is in jail. So what was the story that Miller was working on and why didn’t she put it to print. Could it be that Miller was working on a story about the source of the disclosure rather than the disclosure itself? Altercation (via Hardcopy) even reports on the possibility that Miller told Rove about Palme in the first place!

Why protect a political hack? This is the question that does not seem to be on many journalist’s agenda. The leaking of Palme’s identity was clearly a malicious retaliatory smear campaign designed by a political operative to undermine the credibility of an opponent, an act that may have also broken national security laws. This does not seem like the type of situation under which confidentiality should be given or protected. If there is an argument about journalist/source confidentiality it is about exposing government corruption not assisting it.

Is Miller stage managing the whole thing? In a breath taking piece of cynical commentary the LA Times‘ Rosa Brooks floats the possibility that Miller is staging the whole thing as a way of redeeming herself for her serious ethical lapses on WMD reportage:

If a source with a clear political motivation passes along classified information that has no value for public debate but would endanger the career, and possibly the life, of a covert agent, is a journalist ethically permitted to “out” the no-good sneak? You bet. And if the knowledge that they can’t always hide behind anonymity has a “chilling effect” on political hacks who are eager to manipulate the media in furtherance of their vested interests, that’s OK with me.

But Miller still won’t testify. Even though, ethically, there should be no obligation to go to jail to cover for a sleazeball.

It’s possible (though not likely) that Miller is covering for a genuine whistle-blower who fears retaliation for fingering, gee, Karl Rove, for instance, as the real source of the leak.

But I have another theory. Miller’s no fool; she understood the lesson of the Martha Stewart case: When you find yourself covered with mud, there’s nothing like a brief stint in a minimum-security prison to restore your old luster.