The Dysfunctional Media Family

The NYTimes' Public Editor, Byron Calame,:

The Times delayed publication of drafts of the [NSA] eavesdropping article before the 2004 election. This revelation confirms what anonymous sources had told other publications such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer in December. [Italics added]

Why would they sit on this story for a year, then publish it? Was it really because the White House had asked that it be withheld? Did Bill Keller think it would affect the election? Apparently, yes. He says he thought the revelation would help Bush win the election, so he held it back.

Since when is it kosher for newspapers to spike stories to affect elections? National security doesn't seem to have been a factor at all. Only the election. I didn't think it should have been published at all. This story and the later revelations about the SWIFT program probably made it less likely that plots like the airliner bombing just averted would be detected, but we get no apologies from Bill Keller.

We're talking about terrorism and the threat of more 9/11s here. What business does an unelected news organization with a well-known liberal bias have interfering with the government's efforts to protect us? Does anybody in the media take anything seriously?

A terrible plot to kill thousands of civilians prompts Brian Williams to compare the suicide bombers to our special forces who also put their lives on the line. I accept his explanation, but not his murky thought process. It reeks of political correctness. When your first reaction to a murder-suicide plot involving more than 20 martyr wannabes is to equate terrorists to freedom fighters, somebody needs an intervention. The problem is that our entire news industry is dysfunctional, and there's nobody they care about or respect enough to straighten them out--certainly not the conservative blogosphere.