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The Story: A Reporter's Journey
Star reporter for the New York Times, the world’s most powerful newspaper; foreign correspondent in some of the most dangerous fields; Pulitzer winner; longest jailed correspondent for protecting her sources, Judith Miller is highly controversial. In this memoir, she turns her reporting skills on herself with the intensity of her professional vocation.
Judy Miller grew up near the Nevada atomic proving ground. She got a job at the New York Times after a suit by women employees about discrimination at the paper and went on to cover national politics, head the paper’s bureau in Cairo, and serve as deputy editor in Paris and then deputy at the powerful Washington bureau. She reported on terrorism and the rise of fanatical Islam in the Middle East and on secret biological weapons plants and programs in Iraq, Iran, and Russia. She covered an administration traumatized by 9/11 and an anthrax attack three weeks later. Miller shared a Pulitzer for her reporting.
She turns her journalistic skills on herself and her controversial reporting which marshaled evidence that led America to invade Iraq. She writes about the mistakes she and others made on the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. She addresses the motives of some of her sources, including the notorious Iraqi Chalabi and the CIA. She describes going to jail to protect her sources in the Scooter Libby investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and how the Times subsequently abandoned her after twenty-eight years.
The Story describes the real life of a foreign and investigative reporter. It is an adventure story, told with bluntness and wryness.
Judy Miller grew up near the Nevada atomic proving ground. She got a job at the New York Times after a suit by women employees about discrimination at the paper and went on to cover national politics, head the paper’s bureau in Cairo, and serve as deputy editor in Paris and then deputy at the powerful Washington bureau. She reported on terrorism and the rise of fanatical Islam in the Middle East and on secret biological weapons plants and programs in Iraq, Iran, and Russia. She covered an administration traumatized by 9/11 and an anthrax attack three weeks later. Miller shared a Pulitzer for her reporting.
She turns her journalistic skills on herself and her controversial reporting which marshaled evidence that led America to invade Iraq. She writes about the mistakes she and others made on the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. She addresses the motives of some of her sources, including the notorious Iraqi Chalabi and the CIA. She describes going to jail to protect her sources in the Scooter Libby investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and how the Times subsequently abandoned her after twenty-eight years.
The Story describes the real life of a foreign and investigative reporter. It is an adventure story, told with bluntness and wryness.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published April 7, 2015
27 people are currently reading
270 people want to read
About the author
Judith Miller
8 books11 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 4, 2022
Judith Miller was an investigative reporter with the New York Times and covered the Middle East. She was on assignment regarding weapons of mass destruction. She spent time in jail for refusing to name her sources. She is the author and/or co-author of four other books.
Miller has an incredible bio and background.
The pace and tone of the book was a struggle for me.
Miller has an incredible bio and background.
The pace and tone of the book was a struggle for me.
January 19, 2020
So... well, the NYT have a lot of interest vested somewhere other than in the interest of informing the public of stuff, don't they?
Anyway, this is gonna be a DNF due to distasteful subject, it being a boring story of who gets the better hand in lying and unscrupulousity and me being pretty sure this is not the whole shebang.
Q:
...the ink had barely dried when anonymous Times sources began leaking false and unflattering versions of what had occurred. In the beginning, I ignored such lapses, but perhaps I shouldn’t have. I failed to appreciate early on that the planted gossip about my fierce temper, imperious ways, rogue reporting, and overall pushiness—the way in which aggressive female journalists were then and continue to be characterized—were part of a narrative the paper would use to blame me for what the editor’s note itself had called institutional failings. (c) This is corporatocracy at its most disgusting.
Q:
But since I had achieved my major demands, I was eager to move on with my life.
I spent the next year redefining my identity. (c) Imagine that.
Q:
I was appalled as I watched copies of page after page of calls that I had made or received turned over to Fitzgerald. The logs contained hundreds of calls that Phil and I had made before our story ran. The media paid little attention to this case compared with the ink and airtime they devoted to the Plame investigation and Scooter Libby. That was unfortunate. For Fitzgerald’s seizure of our telephone records turned out to be a far more important bellwether of the challenge that journalists would soon face from a cyber-wise, techno-savvy government intent on plugging national security leaks. (c) Why the fuck should journalists' ways of obtaining info (as long as its all correct and true to the facts) be a crime? This is a totally lame take on the freedom of speech. If the goons from the gov and the alphabet soup hoopla need info be kept secret, they should recruit better and guard that info better. And if any journalist can get their greedy little paws on the said info - then it should be considered a fair game and a mistake on the part of the agency that lost control over its info.
Q:
Despite access to our phone logs, Fitzgerald was apparently unable to identify our sources. Perhaps he did so, but no one was ever charged with disclosing classified information in his inquiry, and none of our sources told us that they had been asked about their discussions with us. Phil and I managed to protect our sources because Jeff Gerth, my friend and colleague with whom I had collaborated on sensitive investigative stories, had drilled into his friends the importance of taking defensive measures to protect our sources. While I initially felt silly, and even a bit paranoid, using unregistered cell phones to call sensitive sources and acting like an amateur drug dealer, Jeff was right. With the government ever more able and willing to inspect journalists’ phone calls and emails to identify their sources, such precautions were becoming essential tradecraft. (c)And all this cyberspying on the part of the gov - this, should really be made illegal. Government for the people not backwards.
Q:
Journalists are magpies. We steal, reinterpret, and regurgitate the insights and assessments of others. Occasionally we have an original idea or formulation. But mostly our job is publicizing the thoughts of others. At our most scrupulous, we identify and acknowledge those whose best lines we steal. (c) Ugh-huh. Garbage in garbage out.
Q:
I remain committed to journalism’s missions: exposing both wrongdoing and all-too-quiet successes, debating the delicate balance between preserving security and freedom, and disclosing what government is doing, or failing to do, to keep us both safe and true to the nation’s laws and values. I have tried to review my mistakes, to correct errors, add new facts, and update them in the fullness of time. I continue trying to tell the story. (c) Amen.
Anyway, this is gonna be a DNF due to distasteful subject, it being a boring story of who gets the better hand in lying and unscrupulousity and me being pretty sure this is not the whole shebang.
Q:
...the ink had barely dried when anonymous Times sources began leaking false and unflattering versions of what had occurred. In the beginning, I ignored such lapses, but perhaps I shouldn’t have. I failed to appreciate early on that the planted gossip about my fierce temper, imperious ways, rogue reporting, and overall pushiness—the way in which aggressive female journalists were then and continue to be characterized—were part of a narrative the paper would use to blame me for what the editor’s note itself had called institutional failings. (c) This is corporatocracy at its most disgusting.
Q:
But since I had achieved my major demands, I was eager to move on with my life.
I spent the next year redefining my identity. (c) Imagine that.
Q:
I was appalled as I watched copies of page after page of calls that I had made or received turned over to Fitzgerald. The logs contained hundreds of calls that Phil and I had made before our story ran. The media paid little attention to this case compared with the ink and airtime they devoted to the Plame investigation and Scooter Libby. That was unfortunate. For Fitzgerald’s seizure of our telephone records turned out to be a far more important bellwether of the challenge that journalists would soon face from a cyber-wise, techno-savvy government intent on plugging national security leaks. (c) Why the fuck should journalists' ways of obtaining info (as long as its all correct and true to the facts) be a crime? This is a totally lame take on the freedom of speech. If the goons from the gov and the alphabet soup hoopla need info be kept secret, they should recruit better and guard that info better. And if any journalist can get their greedy little paws on the said info - then it should be considered a fair game and a mistake on the part of the agency that lost control over its info.
Q:
Despite access to our phone logs, Fitzgerald was apparently unable to identify our sources. Perhaps he did so, but no one was ever charged with disclosing classified information in his inquiry, and none of our sources told us that they had been asked about their discussions with us. Phil and I managed to protect our sources because Jeff Gerth, my friend and colleague with whom I had collaborated on sensitive investigative stories, had drilled into his friends the importance of taking defensive measures to protect our sources. While I initially felt silly, and even a bit paranoid, using unregistered cell phones to call sensitive sources and acting like an amateur drug dealer, Jeff was right. With the government ever more able and willing to inspect journalists’ phone calls and emails to identify their sources, such precautions were becoming essential tradecraft. (c)And all this cyberspying on the part of the gov - this, should really be made illegal. Government for the people not backwards.
Q:
Journalists are magpies. We steal, reinterpret, and regurgitate the insights and assessments of others. Occasionally we have an original idea or formulation. But mostly our job is publicizing the thoughts of others. At our most scrupulous, we identify and acknowledge those whose best lines we steal. (c) Ugh-huh. Garbage in garbage out.
Q:
I remain committed to journalism’s missions: exposing both wrongdoing and all-too-quiet successes, debating the delicate balance between preserving security and freedom, and disclosing what government is doing, or failing to do, to keep us both safe and true to the nation’s laws and values. I have tried to review my mistakes, to correct errors, add new facts, and update them in the fullness of time. I continue trying to tell the story. (c) Amen.
Read
April 8, 2015Judy Miller believes her own lies.
May 26, 2015
3 1/2 stars. Part soap opera, part apologia, but lots of very interesting info; about her months in jail (to preserve confidentiality of her news source)--, also eye-opening was her early investigation for her book "Germs" where she researched the huge stockpiles and labs of the USSR and also bin Laden of anthrax and other bio weapons; this was sickening to read.
The bulk of the book of course is about her reporting about WMD in Iraq, reporting which turned out to be wrong. Turns out this was *not*, as she claims, what "everyone" believed. Her recent appearance on c-span book-tv is worth watching; after her 30 min interview, an audience member, formerly with the CIA, practically ambushed her with statements contradicting some of her assertions. The last 1/2 of this show was quite enlightening. Miller was less than commanding in her defense.
She had a most interesting career, covering Islamist groups, al qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and Egypt, and she does "get" some things about the world view of a culture so different from our own. Buried are little gems: whose urging to Pres Clinton to kill bin Laden in the 1990's was ignored? Who saw that Iraq was a disaster as early as summer 2003, and urged the surge strategy that wasn't undertaken til another 4 years. Sigh.
The bulk of the book of course is about her reporting about WMD in Iraq, reporting which turned out to be wrong. Turns out this was *not*, as she claims, what "everyone" believed. Her recent appearance on c-span book-tv is worth watching; after her 30 min interview, an audience member, formerly with the CIA, practically ambushed her with statements contradicting some of her assertions. The last 1/2 of this show was quite enlightening. Miller was less than commanding in her defense.
She had a most interesting career, covering Islamist groups, al qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and Egypt, and she does "get" some things about the world view of a culture so different from our own. Buried are little gems: whose urging to Pres Clinton to kill bin Laden in the 1990's was ignored? Who saw that Iraq was a disaster as early as summer 2003, and urged the surge strategy that wasn't undertaken til another 4 years. Sigh.
April 18, 2017
At the moment there seems to be a move to resurrect the narrative that the Bush administration lied about the WMD intelligence reports in order to start a war with Iraq. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that there is a Democrat running for President who voted for that war, who needs to blame that vote on somebody else.
At any rate, Judith Miller's book is a timely reminder that there used to be such a thing as journalism, where stories needed at least two corroborating sources, and reporters were embedded with soldiers, and there was a strict line between news reports and editorials. If you're curious what actually happened, she was there for all of it, she wrote about it, and her career was destroyed because of it.
At any rate, Judith Miller's book is a timely reminder that there used to be such a thing as journalism, where stories needed at least two corroborating sources, and reporters were embedded with soldiers, and there was a strict line between news reports and editorials. If you're curious what actually happened, she was there for all of it, she wrote about it, and her career was destroyed because of it.
May 14, 2015
From touring enormous bio warfare factories in Russia, to facing down Taliban with AK-47s, to witnessing hangings and bombings, Judith Miller has been an excellent witness and reporter for thirty years.
In some ways her reports on the infighting and backroom politics of the New York Times is almost as scary as the real threats I mentioned. Suffice it to say, I will never read NYT again.
I have nothing but awe and respect for her intellectual perseverance and honesty. You have to read this book.
In some ways her reports on the infighting and backroom politics of the New York Times is almost as scary as the real threats I mentioned. Suffice it to say, I will never read NYT again.
I have nothing but awe and respect for her intellectual perseverance and honesty. You have to read this book.
June 14, 2015
In this book, Judith Miller has presented a very cogent version of her side of the story, detailing and exposing the underbelly of the news and publishing industry as she reveals the major events of her almost three decade career with the New York Times and then, the decade after; it is not a pretty picture. Many of the negative reviews of the book are not critical reviews, but personally insulting diatribes. They seem to be from the same type of people; they seem to be from very angry ideologues bent on silencing any opposing point of view. They are not governed by information but by personal bias. They seem to be the same people who insisted and still insist that "Bush lied, people died", but believe Obama walks on water, regardless of whether or not the ship is sinking. Many even admit that they have not even read the book and some even refuse to read it. That should give any neutral party an idea of the actual value of their reviews. Perhaps, we in America have become so dumbed down, so jaded by the idea of soundbites, that there is little taste for expending the effort to honestly analyze both sides of an issue. If the possibility exists of destroying someone you disagree with, regardless of whether or not they are right or wrong, it is simply done. A perfect example is Harry Reid who lied about Mitt Romney's tax returns but felt he had no need to apologize, because, as he said, "it worked, we won"! That attitude held by the enemies of Judith Miller came through for me in this book. The hypocrisy of the left leaning Liberals, Progressives and radical Libertarians was exposed, rather than the bias or need for retribution on the part of the author that they believed was the purpose of the book. She merely presented another side of an issue different than that of the left-leaning culture of publishers, authors, entertainers and journalists, journalists and publishers who had actually promised to air her side of the story, supportively, but in the end were loathe to present it to the general public. They didn't consider it "news that was fit to print"!
Jealousy and backstabbing were common themes as was the picture of self-serving journalists and management interested only in the bottom line and most often in the “cover you’re a__” principle as a matter of policy. Miller was condemned rather than honored as the journalist who stuck up for the principles of free speech, their protected free speech, as well. After all, she went to jail to defend that principle. She was a journalist who had helped win awards for the newspaper and who, heretofore, had been praised as a reporter and honored with awards, although, as some said, her style might have been considered aggressive and her personality stand-offish. She was, therefore, the perfect foil and scapegoat when controversy came to the New York Times. As it became known that there were no WMD’s, and she was an embed with the soldiers searching for them, she was roundly criticized for her reporting, even though it was based on faulty intelligence and not her own opinions.
It appears that the industry that was to serve as the “fourth estate” to keep the government in check has failed, and continues to, because of the aspirations and career climbing greed of the players involved who seek to further themselves and their own political opinions and futures. The news is no longer accurately presented. Yellow journalism which is defined as “journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration”, once despised, is now the rule. It is the headline that counts and, of course the byline. Accuracy is no longer important, rather it is catching the eye of a reader who may or may not be literate enough to discern fact from fiction, to do any research on their own to discover the whole truth. The need for the easy sound bite has become paramount and it has transformed the readers into a class of people that only wants to be spoon fed, regardless of what is on the spoon. Truth has become the victim of the less than stellar tactics used by those who own the bully pulpit.
Miller believes that she was misled about WMD’s, as were the President and other members of the administration, foreign governments and intelligence organizations, although many chose to recant their original positions when it was learned that there were none. Many of those same players trashed Miller’s reporting in order to pin their own failures on someone else, including and most importantly President Bush. They rejoiced in calling him a liar and inferred that he was a murderer, deliberately sending soldiers into battle to satisfy his personal beliefs. The skewing of the facts, the vying for power, regardless of the consequences for those who were in their way, was mind boggling. Just as Miller was condemned for her reporting about WMD”s, she was condemned for getting released from jail earlier than her colleagues believed she should. She had become embroiled in the scandal of Valerie Plame’s “outing” as a secret agent, and she was commanded to testify by an appointed Special Counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, in order to discover the name of the source who had “outed” her. Plame herself was viewed as self-promoting and her husband, Joe Wilson, was actually the one who brought the issue to the public eye, an issue which would have remained unknown and rather a non-issue if there were no political biases involved. It was the influence of his wife that had gotten him his African posting which helped him write a scathing review of the Bush administration’s war effort, so there was no love lost between them and the Bush administration. When Miller refused to name her source, she was jailed for 85 days until the source allowed her to speak. One betrayal followed another as her fellow journalists and management condemned her decision to get out of jail and testify, although no other journalist had ever been jailed for so long a period. Their behavior seems both disgraceful and shameful. It would have been more appropriate to laud her heroic effort on behalf of the industry and her fellow journalists, but instead of gratitude, she was ridiculed and persecuted. With the threat of years of jail hanging over her head because of a well known, thought to be self serving prosecutor who was determined to get some kind of judgment to promote his political and legal career, regardless of his victims innocence or guilt, she petitioned her source to release her, and when he did, she testified.
Miller appears to have become the vehicle the Democrats chose to use as a way to trash the Bush administration and with it, the entire GOP. The sharks smelled blood in the water. The powers that be at the New York Times, Sulzberger, Keller, and Abramson, thought only of their own careers and the Times ability to weather the storm they had permitted to gather; they tossed people and truth to the wind as they followed their own self-interest. Is it any wonder that newspapers have fallen by the wayside? Miller became the universal scapegoat and entertainment fodder for late night tv hosts as they trashed her, as well, promoting their own personal views. Jon Stewart, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, The Daily Kos, and Politico, among others, cherry picked the facts as they saw an opportunity to not only tarnish a reputation but to condemn the entire Bush administration.
Although Judy Miller admitted she made several mistakes based on incorrect information given to her by her sources, in the end, she reveals that one very important error in her career was due to the tactics of a Federal Prosecutor determined to win, regardless of the cost. Miller believes that his heavy handed tactics and threats pretty much coerced her to rush to judgment and provide information against Scooter Libby which was false. Jailed and frightened that she would continue to remain there, she did not have the time to review her notes thoroughly and as thoughtfully as they should have been. It was only years later that she realized, upon discovering additional notes, that she had made statements which contributed to Libby’s undeserved jail sentence. At the time, though, she believed that her testimony to the Grand jury and during the trial, was the truth. She responded to the best of her ability. Although she tried to reconstruct conversations that she had had many months and sometimes years in the past, her responses to questions inadvertently condemned Libby. She had misinterpreted what she had written in her notes.
In the book, Miller does justify her journalism by detailing the many countries and intelligence agencies that believed that Saddam had WMD’s. She was embedded with the group tasked with finding them. She says no one lied, it was faulty intelligence. However, political hacks saw fit to use the information to pull down the right and benefit the left, to create their own truth. Listening to Miller read her own "story" was very engaging and eye-opening. Although she had been regally praised in the past for her coverage of Bin Laden and the Middle East Wars, although she had helped the paper win awards, when it was discovered that the information believed by most nations and high ranking officials about Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD's, was false, she was maligned.
The names of the people who smeared her are pretty much household names in many homes; they are people who have risen up the ladder of success in the industry, not by defending the rights of their fellow members in the industry, but by betraying them and using their bodies to give themselves a leg up: Jill Abramson, Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller come across horribly as does Howard Kurtz, Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Jack Shafer, to name just a few of those who were all part of the feeding frenzy, who didn’t walk in her shoes but saw fit to judge her.
She should have been hailed as a hero, not maligned as a liar who was self-serving by those who were actually guilty of the flaw of which they accused her. Democrats and radical Libertarians of all stripes could not wait to call anyone associated with Bush a liar....yet many of them were themselves liars. They all manipulated the facts to further their own particular political or personal point of view.
Miller mixed with the who’s who of the era in which she worked. She mixed with famous journalists before she achieved fame, met writers, heads of state, and diplomats in her work as an investigative journalist in the Middle East. She was an editor worthy of repute, but she preferred to write the “story”. She was not always permitted to do so because the New York Times did not think it was news that was “fit to print”. Now, a decade after leaving the Times, she has written her side of the story. Read it, it is eye-opening about her life and the world of news!
Jealousy and backstabbing were common themes as was the picture of self-serving journalists and management interested only in the bottom line and most often in the “cover you’re a__” principle as a matter of policy. Miller was condemned rather than honored as the journalist who stuck up for the principles of free speech, their protected free speech, as well. After all, she went to jail to defend that principle. She was a journalist who had helped win awards for the newspaper and who, heretofore, had been praised as a reporter and honored with awards, although, as some said, her style might have been considered aggressive and her personality stand-offish. She was, therefore, the perfect foil and scapegoat when controversy came to the New York Times. As it became known that there were no WMD’s, and she was an embed with the soldiers searching for them, she was roundly criticized for her reporting, even though it was based on faulty intelligence and not her own opinions.
It appears that the industry that was to serve as the “fourth estate” to keep the government in check has failed, and continues to, because of the aspirations and career climbing greed of the players involved who seek to further themselves and their own political opinions and futures. The news is no longer accurately presented. Yellow journalism which is defined as “journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration”, once despised, is now the rule. It is the headline that counts and, of course the byline. Accuracy is no longer important, rather it is catching the eye of a reader who may or may not be literate enough to discern fact from fiction, to do any research on their own to discover the whole truth. The need for the easy sound bite has become paramount and it has transformed the readers into a class of people that only wants to be spoon fed, regardless of what is on the spoon. Truth has become the victim of the less than stellar tactics used by those who own the bully pulpit.
Miller believes that she was misled about WMD’s, as were the President and other members of the administration, foreign governments and intelligence organizations, although many chose to recant their original positions when it was learned that there were none. Many of those same players trashed Miller’s reporting in order to pin their own failures on someone else, including and most importantly President Bush. They rejoiced in calling him a liar and inferred that he was a murderer, deliberately sending soldiers into battle to satisfy his personal beliefs. The skewing of the facts, the vying for power, regardless of the consequences for those who were in their way, was mind boggling. Just as Miller was condemned for her reporting about WMD”s, she was condemned for getting released from jail earlier than her colleagues believed she should. She had become embroiled in the scandal of Valerie Plame’s “outing” as a secret agent, and she was commanded to testify by an appointed Special Counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, in order to discover the name of the source who had “outed” her. Plame herself was viewed as self-promoting and her husband, Joe Wilson, was actually the one who brought the issue to the public eye, an issue which would have remained unknown and rather a non-issue if there were no political biases involved. It was the influence of his wife that had gotten him his African posting which helped him write a scathing review of the Bush administration’s war effort, so there was no love lost between them and the Bush administration. When Miller refused to name her source, she was jailed for 85 days until the source allowed her to speak. One betrayal followed another as her fellow journalists and management condemned her decision to get out of jail and testify, although no other journalist had ever been jailed for so long a period. Their behavior seems both disgraceful and shameful. It would have been more appropriate to laud her heroic effort on behalf of the industry and her fellow journalists, but instead of gratitude, she was ridiculed and persecuted. With the threat of years of jail hanging over her head because of a well known, thought to be self serving prosecutor who was determined to get some kind of judgment to promote his political and legal career, regardless of his victims innocence or guilt, she petitioned her source to release her, and when he did, she testified.
Miller appears to have become the vehicle the Democrats chose to use as a way to trash the Bush administration and with it, the entire GOP. The sharks smelled blood in the water. The powers that be at the New York Times, Sulzberger, Keller, and Abramson, thought only of their own careers and the Times ability to weather the storm they had permitted to gather; they tossed people and truth to the wind as they followed their own self-interest. Is it any wonder that newspapers have fallen by the wayside? Miller became the universal scapegoat and entertainment fodder for late night tv hosts as they trashed her, as well, promoting their own personal views. Jon Stewart, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, The Daily Kos, and Politico, among others, cherry picked the facts as they saw an opportunity to not only tarnish a reputation but to condemn the entire Bush administration.
Although Judy Miller admitted she made several mistakes based on incorrect information given to her by her sources, in the end, she reveals that one very important error in her career was due to the tactics of a Federal Prosecutor determined to win, regardless of the cost. Miller believes that his heavy handed tactics and threats pretty much coerced her to rush to judgment and provide information against Scooter Libby which was false. Jailed and frightened that she would continue to remain there, she did not have the time to review her notes thoroughly and as thoughtfully as they should have been. It was only years later that she realized, upon discovering additional notes, that she had made statements which contributed to Libby’s undeserved jail sentence. At the time, though, she believed that her testimony to the Grand jury and during the trial, was the truth. She responded to the best of her ability. Although she tried to reconstruct conversations that she had had many months and sometimes years in the past, her responses to questions inadvertently condemned Libby. She had misinterpreted what she had written in her notes.
In the book, Miller does justify her journalism by detailing the many countries and intelligence agencies that believed that Saddam had WMD’s. She was embedded with the group tasked with finding them. She says no one lied, it was faulty intelligence. However, political hacks saw fit to use the information to pull down the right and benefit the left, to create their own truth. Listening to Miller read her own "story" was very engaging and eye-opening. Although she had been regally praised in the past for her coverage of Bin Laden and the Middle East Wars, although she had helped the paper win awards, when it was discovered that the information believed by most nations and high ranking officials about Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD's, was false, she was maligned.
The names of the people who smeared her are pretty much household names in many homes; they are people who have risen up the ladder of success in the industry, not by defending the rights of their fellow members in the industry, but by betraying them and using their bodies to give themselves a leg up: Jill Abramson, Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller come across horribly as does Howard Kurtz, Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Jack Shafer, to name just a few of those who were all part of the feeding frenzy, who didn’t walk in her shoes but saw fit to judge her.
She should have been hailed as a hero, not maligned as a liar who was self-serving by those who were actually guilty of the flaw of which they accused her. Democrats and radical Libertarians of all stripes could not wait to call anyone associated with Bush a liar....yet many of them were themselves liars. They all manipulated the facts to further their own particular political or personal point of view.
Miller mixed with the who’s who of the era in which she worked. She mixed with famous journalists before she achieved fame, met writers, heads of state, and diplomats in her work as an investigative journalist in the Middle East. She was an editor worthy of repute, but she preferred to write the “story”. She was not always permitted to do so because the New York Times did not think it was news that was “fit to print”. Now, a decade after leaving the Times, she has written her side of the story. Read it, it is eye-opening about her life and the world of news!
May 7, 2015
Excellent book. It was obvious to me that when liberals realized that the intelligence about WMD was faulty, they looked for someone to blame to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their own judgment on the intelligence. It was easy to blame the Bush administration by repeating (until it became the prevailing "wisdom") the mantra “Bush lied, people died.” (I'll bet Hillary Clinton will take zero responsibility for her vote for the Iraq war in the upcoming presidential election and I'm certain she was part of intelligence briefings.) As we know, many of our allies saw the same intelligence and had their own intelligence as well (including Britain, France, Canada, Israel, Australia, Germany and Russia) and they also believed that Saddam Hussein was developing WMDs. Apparently that’s exactly what he Saddam Hussein wanted everyone to believe. According to the author, even Bill Clinton claimed that “Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear program, or at the very least trying to preserve an ability to do so quickly when sanctions were lifted.”
Some quotes:
Iraq’s search for WMD “has proven impossible to completely deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power” (Al Gore)
“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction” (Ted Kennedy, though he opposed the US invasion)
“All US intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons.” (John Kerry)
It was also obvious to me that the NY Times threw Judith Miller under the bus, despite her long and distinguished career in journalism. The NY Times had been embarrassed over the Jason Blair plagiarism scandal, was facing declining revenues from a decline in circulation (true for all major newspapers), was receiving big push back from liberals who complained that the NY Times led the drumbeat to war so the powers that be at the NY Times basically cut Judith Miller loose unless she wanted to stay on and do the food review or something equally lame. She was the fall guy so the NY Times could maintain whatever credibility it still has with the left.
Some quotes:
Iraq’s search for WMD “has proven impossible to completely deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power” (Al Gore)
“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction” (Ted Kennedy, though he opposed the US invasion)
“All US intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons.” (John Kerry)
It was also obvious to me that the NY Times threw Judith Miller under the bus, despite her long and distinguished career in journalism. The NY Times had been embarrassed over the Jason Blair plagiarism scandal, was facing declining revenues from a decline in circulation (true for all major newspapers), was receiving big push back from liberals who complained that the NY Times led the drumbeat to war so the powers that be at the NY Times basically cut Judith Miller loose unless she wanted to stay on and do the food review or something equally lame. She was the fall guy so the NY Times could maintain whatever credibility it still has with the left.
October 3, 2015
This book is autobiographical, so in that sense, I guess some might claim that it is "self-serving." However, this woman dedicated her life to journalism and getting the story "right." She has been described as "pushy" and "Miss Run Amok," by her colleagues, and that might be true, or it may be just tinged with professional jealousy because Miller delivered some pretty powerful stories, and informed us about WMD and biological warfare, the rise of Islamic terrorism long before it became headlines, and now about the paranoia/guilt of egos running one of world's leading newspapers. Miller got caught up in the WMD in Iraq situation, reporting on events leading up to Bush's drive to war, and then investigation into the fact that none were found. We were all duped, and afterwards, the powers that be were looking to assign blame, whether at the governmental level, or at the New York Times. NYT showed it's Achilles heel by being pressured by the unofficial online media, the "blogosphere," which savaged Miller. Turning their back on a loyal employee has lost my respect for their journalistic process and lack of integrity.
April 25, 2015
A bit self-serving.
January 7, 2024
On the one hand, Miller has a storied career covering major news stories in the U.S., the Middle East, and across the globe, and the first third of this book details how she became a news reporter, and the above-average skills she possessed to find information, convey it professionally, abide by the rules of journalism, and risk both her personal life and physical safety for the job.
On the other hand, this book has no real central thesis, other than for her to make the argument that she's a reliable reporter and fallible human being who's been caught in the crosshairs more than once, and had her reputation permanently sullied for it.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, that she's one of the best journalists of her generation, but she must also be held accountable for missteps she's taken in shouldering the gravity of sensitive, important, and impactful information. For example, she was excoriated on The Daily Show for the fact that many of her stories influenced the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. Miller's argument was that, in her reporting, she presented the information she was given, including the CIA's insistence that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction, even though that proved false. Stewart's argument was that many officials doubted that intelligence, and Miller failed to properly present their side of the case. During the interview, she suggested that that part of the story had been removed by her editors, not her, which may have been true. Before reading this book, I thought Stewart was unfairly trying to blame her for the U.S. getting involved in the war. What I think he should have been arguing (and may have been, only to be frustrated by her answers), was that she didn't make the decision, but her work played a large part, and her refusal to own up to that was the real problem.
After reading the book, I think reasonable people are just mad we got involved in the war based on misinformation, and she failed in her responsibility to find the truth and/or explain that the truth had not yet been fully found. But more than that, her book is more like a peek inside her mind, where she doesn't see herself as a responsible party in that situation or any other. She's embodied the idea that she's just a journalist, a non-player in these matters. She even has a comment about her stint in jail (while admirably trying to protect a source who may or may not have wanted her to do that for him) where she says that in reporting the news, she had become the news, which is not what she or any other journalist wants.
And therein lies the problem: the denial that reporters themselves become public figures. In the print news world, the best reporters become celebrities of sorts. Bob Woodward, Maggie Haberman, Ronan Farrow, Jane Mayer, Truman Capote. These may not all be household names, but they are familiar to their readers, and in Miller's pursuit of that upper echelon, she believed that somehow she would remain insulated or under the radar. She holds herself accountable to her sources and her editors, but not to her readers. Apologies are not her strong suit. This book finishes with a 24-page epilogue that reads essentially like a laundry list of what she did and did not remember in relation to the Valerie Plame case, what she testified about, and how lost in it all she had become. The book begins with a highly accountable and ambitious woman, and ends with her dizzied by the storm she actively sought to be part of.
Do I, or any other readers, need her apology? Not necessarily. But for a book with the presumed intent of showcasing her as a real person, it felt like the least she could offer.
On the other hand, this book has no real central thesis, other than for her to make the argument that she's a reliable reporter and fallible human being who's been caught in the crosshairs more than once, and had her reputation permanently sullied for it.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, that she's one of the best journalists of her generation, but she must also be held accountable for missteps she's taken in shouldering the gravity of sensitive, important, and impactful information. For example, she was excoriated on The Daily Show for the fact that many of her stories influenced the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. Miller's argument was that, in her reporting, she presented the information she was given, including the CIA's insistence that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction, even though that proved false. Stewart's argument was that many officials doubted that intelligence, and Miller failed to properly present their side of the case. During the interview, she suggested that that part of the story had been removed by her editors, not her, which may have been true. Before reading this book, I thought Stewart was unfairly trying to blame her for the U.S. getting involved in the war. What I think he should have been arguing (and may have been, only to be frustrated by her answers), was that she didn't make the decision, but her work played a large part, and her refusal to own up to that was the real problem.
After reading the book, I think reasonable people are just mad we got involved in the war based on misinformation, and she failed in her responsibility to find the truth and/or explain that the truth had not yet been fully found. But more than that, her book is more like a peek inside her mind, where she doesn't see herself as a responsible party in that situation or any other. She's embodied the idea that she's just a journalist, a non-player in these matters. She even has a comment about her stint in jail (while admirably trying to protect a source who may or may not have wanted her to do that for him) where she says that in reporting the news, she had become the news, which is not what she or any other journalist wants.
And therein lies the problem: the denial that reporters themselves become public figures. In the print news world, the best reporters become celebrities of sorts. Bob Woodward, Maggie Haberman, Ronan Farrow, Jane Mayer, Truman Capote. These may not all be household names, but they are familiar to their readers, and in Miller's pursuit of that upper echelon, she believed that somehow she would remain insulated or under the radar. She holds herself accountable to her sources and her editors, but not to her readers. Apologies are not her strong suit. This book finishes with a 24-page epilogue that reads essentially like a laundry list of what she did and did not remember in relation to the Valerie Plame case, what she testified about, and how lost in it all she had become. The book begins with a highly accountable and ambitious woman, and ends with her dizzied by the storm she actively sought to be part of.
Do I, or any other readers, need her apology? Not necessarily. But for a book with the presumed intent of showcasing her as a real person, it felt like the least she could offer.
July 30, 2020
I get the sense that this book has an unreliable narrator, but it was a decent read, and a reminder of why the higher the stakes, the more sources you need is a good rule of thumb in journalism.
As a journalist, the most interesting part for me was actually in the last few pages, when she outlined how the Obama administration used its extensive surveillance of the American public (a lot of it implemented by Bush, so Team No One here) to monitor phone records and track down who was leaking information to journalists, and to punish the journalists themselves, and how much that increased compared to previous administrations.
As a journalist, the most interesting part for me was actually in the last few pages, when she outlined how the Obama administration used its extensive surveillance of the American public (a lot of it implemented by Bush, so Team No One here) to monitor phone records and track down who was leaking information to journalists, and to punish the journalists themselves, and how much that increased compared to previous administrations.
August 12, 2017
Interesting read!
December 29, 2015
On the surface Ms. Miller's book is a professional biography which, while long on apologetic detail is quite interesting. Under the surface it is a sad reminder of what journalistic ethics, foreign news gathering, and the New York Times used to be, but are no longer. The final take away is the pathetic need of the FasciLib literati to scape goat their collective support of a war that became unpopular, and the cowardly complicity of the Times leadership, for whom it meant sacrificing the career of a respected award winning writer and largely faithful liberal, who, to everyone's shocked surprise, does not have the power of omniscience, and to her detriment, happened to be the most prolific writer on the topic.
May 13, 2015
Her description of the run-up to the Iraq War rings true. Her years of reporting on the Middle East made her dogged search for weapons of mass destruction credible. She often shared a by-line with experienced male reporters as well, working hand-in-hand with them. But female reporters of her era had it tough, very tough. She and another female, Valerie Plame (formerly of the CIA), took the fall for men who had enormous power in the G.W. Bush administration. Every citizen who wonders how investigative reporters, male and female, get the facts through intensive reporting should read this.
October 10, 2015
good writer, but for some reason I couldn't get into the parts (lots of the book) about the search for WMD in Iraq, controversies about her reporting in the run-up to that war, etc. I guess it was covered very thoroughly at the time, so at this point the only way it might hold my attention is if you had some sort of debate -- someone who thinks she was irresponsible going back and forth with her about it.
in this format where it's all her side, i was actually more taken with her account of the internal politics of working for the NY Times.
in this format where it's all her side, i was actually more taken with her account of the internal politics of working for the NY Times.
September 12, 2015
I had been anxiously awaiting this one to move up my holds list at the Iibrary and it was worth the wait. Definitely makes you sympathize with Miller and rationalize the way she was totally duped (like the rest of the country) about Iraq and WMD. Very dense with military terms at times but once I got into it, I was hooked.
May 25, 2015
Extremely detailed account of her reporting based on information from vetted sources leading up to our invasion of Iraq. Keeping the names of all of the players involved was difficult for me but necessary to tell the story. Well written. Very informative.
July 24, 2015
Comprehensive look a reporter's fascinating career reporting on the Middle East, terrorism, both Iraq wars, as well as her role in the notorious WMD and Valerie Plame stories.
The truth is rarely simple, and sadly, even more rarely found in today's media.
The truth is rarely simple, and sadly, even more rarely found in today's media.
December 9, 2015
I've never read any of Judith's writings before but I thought this was a great, not always pleasant, story of her experience in the newspaper business and taking on difficult stories in war zones and what she was willing to go to prison over to retain her standards and convictions.
July 7, 2015
This book did not hold my attention.
June 11, 2015
Moral..
Trust no one except yourself.
I think that Andrea Rapp's review says it all.
Trust no one except yourself.
I think that Andrea Rapp's review says it all.
October 19, 2015
Most interesting to hear her side of the story.
January 21, 2016
Judith Miller, a reporter for the New York Times for 28 years shares her story of pre Iraq war and the belief she had there were weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's Iraq.
July 8, 2016
Fascinating bio with insights on internal politics at the NYT, and Washington politics. I skipped huge swathes of this (mostly interested in her WMD coverage), but Miller is a riveting storyteller.
April 9, 2017
An important piece of documentation about the First Amendment and contemporary journalism and about the justice system. It took me a long time to read it because of its immense detail. Still not sure I could tell you what really happened! But as I am fascinated by journalists' inside stories, I give this one full marks for a thorough recounting of a difficult time in American life.
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