Bad Press

The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin has the definitive story on the way the press covered itself with ignominy in the Valerie Plame Wilson affair. While the press was busy wondering who the leakers were, and the White House was busy issuing pius lies, much of the Washington press, including, among others, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC knew exactly who was leaking, because they had been leaked to, too, and knew that the White House was lying.

So why didn't they tell us. Protecting their sources, they claim. Protecting their access, is what they really mean. The Washington press, it seems, has become an unofficial propaganda arm of the government.

Froomkin starts with the Tim Russert:

If you're a journalist, and a very senior White House official calls you up on the phone, what do you do? Do you try to get the official to address issues of urgent concern so that you can then relate that information to the public?

Not if you're NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert.

When then-vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby called Russert on July 10, 2003, to complain that his name was being unfairly bandied about by MSNBC host Chris Matthews, Russert apparently asked him nothing.

And get this: According to Russert's testimony yesterday at Libby's trial, when any senior government official calls him, they are presumptively off the record.

That's not reporting, that's enabling.

Many things are "on trial" at the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse right now. Libby is the only one facing a jail sentence -- and Russert's testimony, firmly contradicting the central claim of Libby's defense, may just end up putting him there.

But Libby's boss, along with the whole Bush White House, for that matter, is being held up to public scrutiny as well.

And the behavior of elite members of Washington's press corps -- sometimes appearing more interested in protecting themselves and their cozy "sources" than in informing the public -- is also being exposed for all the world to see...

There is more - lots more. Read the story.

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