The New York Times, in Editors' Note, Finds Much to Fault in its
Iraq WMD Coverage
Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher Online
NEW YORK — After months of criticism of The New York Times' coverage of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — mainly directed at star
reporter Judith Miller — the paper's editors, in an extraordinary
note to readers this morning, finally tackled the subject,
acknowledging it was "past time" they do so. Following the sudden
fall last week of Ahmad Chalabi, Miller's most famous source, they
probably had no choice.
While it does not, in some ways, go nearly far enough, and is buried
on Page A10, this low-key but scathing self-rebuke is nothing less
than a primer on how not to do journalism, particularly if you are an
enormously influential newspaper with a costly invasion of another
nation at stake.