Note of Regret
May 28, 2004
On Wednesday the New York Times ran an editor’s note taking stock of the paper’s coverage of the run-up to the war in Iraq. The note referred to an unquestioning reliance on Iraqi defectors such as Ahmed Chalabi, as principal sources, often without verification or follow-up. Of the six articles used to illustrate the problem, four of them bore the byline of Judith Miller, though she wasn’t mentioned by name in the note. Jack Shafer writes the Press Box column for Slate and he has been calling for a reexamination of Miller’s work for more than a year. But now that it’s come to pass, he tells Brooke that he sees no reason for singling Miller out.
