Perhaps Los Angeles Times Editor Dean Baquet Should Coordinate His Story With Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus?
This is an excellent post by Hugh
by Hugh Hewitt
June 27, 2006 05:39 AM PST
Yesterday Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief appeared on my program to explain his paper's decision to assist terrorists in eluding capture. Today the paper's editor, Dean Baquet, publsihes this defense: "Why we ran the story."
MANY READERS have been sharply critical of our decision to publish an article Friday on the U.S. Treasury Department's program to secretly monitor worldwide money transfers in an effort to track terrorist financing.
They have sent me sincere and powerful expressions of their disappointment in our newspaper, and they deserve an equally thoughtful and honest response.
The deception begins here. How many readers? Why not post all of their letters so the readers can see? How many subscriptions have been lost?
The decision to publish this article was not one we took lightly. We considered very seriously the government's assertion that these disclosures could cause difficulties for counterterrorism programs. And we weighed that assertion against the fact that there is an intense and ongoing public debate about whether surveillance programs like these pose a serious threat to civil liberties.
This statement is bluntly contradicted by Doyle McManus' statement to me yesterday that no such balancing occured once word arrived that the New York Times was publishing the story. Here's the McManus quote:
HH: Now what I'm wondering, though, is, how did you balance? What probability did you assign to the terrorist tack that doesn't get stopped because of this story?
DM: Well, I can't give you a mathematical formula on that. And as a matter of fact, when we made our decision to publish our story, the New York Times had already published its. So as a matter of fact, we had not had the set of discussions that we had scheduled on precisely how to balance that. So in a sense, I can't tell you how we balanced it, because we ended up not coming to a final decision. Now I don't mean to be disingenuous. We were certainly leaning in the direction of publishing, but we hadn't finally decided to...
Read the entire post Here
These guys have been an 'Evinrude in a cesspool' for about the last 30 years, and it's time for accountability.
by Hugh Hewitt
June 27, 2006 05:39 AM PST
Yesterday Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief appeared on my program to explain his paper's decision to assist terrorists in eluding capture. Today the paper's editor, Dean Baquet, publsihes this defense: "Why we ran the story."
MANY READERS have been sharply critical of our decision to publish an article Friday on the U.S. Treasury Department's program to secretly monitor worldwide money transfers in an effort to track terrorist financing.
They have sent me sincere and powerful expressions of their disappointment in our newspaper, and they deserve an equally thoughtful and honest response.
The deception begins here. How many readers? Why not post all of their letters so the readers can see? How many subscriptions have been lost?
The decision to publish this article was not one we took lightly. We considered very seriously the government's assertion that these disclosures could cause difficulties for counterterrorism programs. And we weighed that assertion against the fact that there is an intense and ongoing public debate about whether surveillance programs like these pose a serious threat to civil liberties.
This statement is bluntly contradicted by Doyle McManus' statement to me yesterday that no such balancing occured once word arrived that the New York Times was publishing the story. Here's the McManus quote:
HH: Now what I'm wondering, though, is, how did you balance? What probability did you assign to the terrorist tack that doesn't get stopped because of this story?
DM: Well, I can't give you a mathematical formula on that. And as a matter of fact, when we made our decision to publish our story, the New York Times had already published its. So as a matter of fact, we had not had the set of discussions that we had scheduled on precisely how to balance that. So in a sense, I can't tell you how we balanced it, because we ended up not coming to a final decision. Now I don't mean to be disingenuous. We were certainly leaning in the direction of publishing, but we hadn't finally decided to...
Read the entire post Here
These guys have been an 'Evinrude in a cesspool' for about the last 30 years, and it's time for accountability.
posted by Gary | 9:49 AM
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