Insider Dealings

Josh Marshall has a post up on the culture in which the Judy Miller affair went down. When the administration is the party spreading anonymously sourced information, when is a newspaper doing its job and when is it just becoming a propaganda arm of the party in power?
Leaks come in many flavors. But we can chart two broad categories. In one falls leaks rooted in individual motivations of conscience, cattiness or revenge, dogged reporting or long-standing relationships between sources and reporters. In another are those leaks best termed 'official', in which the government itself decides to put out a story, but does so through leaks rather than officially. The latter variety is fraught with danger.

The New York Times is one of an extraordinarily small number of news outlets (probably fewer than you have fingers on one hand) that gets those calls.

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