ELEPHANTS IN THE PRESS ROOM

MUCH CACKLING WAS HEARD when Judith Miller claimed she had a security clearance and then that claim was denied by the government officials. [story] Jim Miklaszewski reports CIA, DIA, and Pentagon officials have no idea what Miller is talking about.

In her account, Miller wrote, “I told Mr. Fitzgerald that Mr. Libby might have thought I still had security clearance, given my special embedded status in Iraq.”

While embedded reporters are often granted access to classified briefings with the proviso that the information can only be used as background and cannot be reported, Pentagon officials say no military commander or officer has the individual authority to grant a security clearance.

SOME ELEPHANTS MARCHED in from the desert into the press room. First: who in the halls of power would now admit they offering Miller any kind of official status?   The reality is Judith Miller had extraordinary and unique access no regular reporter would have.  But the larger elephant that leaves droppings in the press room is this.  Embedded reporters already too close to their sources for judicious editorial perspective get information perhaps crucial to a story and then can’t write about it.  So what purpose do such “briefings” serve.

THIS LARGE ELEPHANT CASTS a shadow on what stories will see light at all.  In the buddy buddy system of journalism now found, your access to your buddy, the source with information, serves the source more than the story. Such “background” buries some stories in the background possibly forever.

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