Oct 20, 2005

SPJ Undercuts First Amendment With Miller Award

SPJ Undercuts First Amendment With Miller Award 10/19/05 The Society of Professional Journalists’ decision to give its prestigious "First Amendment Award" to embattled New York Times reporter Judith Miller is a blow to freedom of expression. By rewarding a reporter who was apparently collaborating with and protecting a powerful official in an effort to punish the free speech of a government critic, the SPJ is undermining, not advancing, the principles of the First Amendment. The award, coming two days after details of Miller’s involvement in the CIA leak story and her grand jury testimony were revealed by the New York Times (10/16/05), was defended by SPJ board member Mac McKerral, who told Editor & Publisher (10/17/05), “It’s not a lifetime achievement award.... I could understand people being upset if we were recognizing her work over a period of time, but this is an award for being willing to not reveal a source, willing to spend so many days in jail, and that is how we distinguish it…. Issues raised in the past couple of days really had no bearing on the award." But why wouldn't new information about the case be relevant to a journalism group? For months, Miller claimed a journalistic privilege to protect Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby. Miller would eventually tell the grand jury that Libby had identified Valerie Plame Wilson--the wife of White House critic and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson--as a CIA employee (New York Times, 10/16/05). Miller seemed to have little doubt about what motivated this disclosure: Asked why she agreed to Libby's request to identify him only as a “former Hill staffer,” Miller told the grand jury, “I assumed Mr. Libby did not want the White House to be seen as attacking Mr. Wilson.” http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2701

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This totally undermines the validity and prestige of the organization-and makes one question membership....in addition to being completely inappropriate.

Anonymous said...

And Prison Legal News is having a hard time finding journalism groups to sign onto a friend of the court brief where we challenge a Florida prison rule that prohibits paying prisoners for their writings.

PLN paid one of its prisoner writers $30 for three articles he wrote and he was infracted, convicted and sentenced to 90 days in isolation and 90 days loss of good time credits for having the temerity to accept payment for his work. And the articles he writes for PLN are true.

Relations to power seem to be the deciding issue here. Miller has more of it than a lowly prisoner in Florida.