THURSDAY'S LETTERS: Judy Miller, Citizen Journalism and Navigating the Conservative Blogosphere

By: E&P Staff Here's the latest from our mailbag: one former employee of a New York Times Co.-owned paper explains the "extreme caution the company practices with difficult employees," an Editor-in-Research at MIT discusses a recent column on citizen journalism, and one reader helps us navigate the conservative blogosphere.

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Dear Mr. Mitchell:

It was a relief to see today's E&P report that Judith Miller is discussing her "exit" from the New York Times. Like you and others, I've wondered how she's kept her job for so long.

However, your 10/23 column ("It's Still Miller Time at the 'Times' ") seems to me to misinterpret what columnist Maureen Dowd and public editor Byron Calame wrote. Dowd, after saying Miller ?should have been nailed to a chair,? wrote, "Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover 'the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country.' If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.?

Calame said, ?It seems to me that whatever the limits put on her, the problems facing her inside and outside the newsroom will make it difficult for her to return to the paper as a reporter.?

There's nothing there to suggest she should be made an editor; rather, it seemed to me both statements were carefully worded code for "if she still wants to work here it will be as an editorial clerk."

As a former reporter and section editor at the NYT paper the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, I experienced the extreme caution the company practices with difficult employees. No doubt saying publicly that she should be fired would have been ample fuel for a defamation suit, and certainly would not have helped the Times defend itself in a wrongful dismissal suit.

Personally, I'd have reassigned her long ago, to something like compiling a clubs calendar. At the Press Democrat, refusing the assignment would have been grounds for dismissal under the Newspaper Guild contract. But we must remember Miller did win a Pulitzer for the Times and clearly has a lot of powerful friends. Diplomacy was mandatory.

Sophie Annan Jensen
Lucerne, Calif.

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Re: Steve Outing's column,Can 'Citizen Journalists' Really Produce Readable Content?

Useful piece on quality of citizen journalism (I'm not crazy about the term either, but it conveys a clear meaning to the public that words like blog don't fulfill). You seem to lean toward the CJ model that has connectedness to a mainstream media organization. Somehow that doesn't seem to be happening much in this country; a lost opportunity in my opinion.

I'd like to especially applaud your seminar suggestion with my own asterisk, and I would argue that it enhances rather than inhibits them "saying what they want to say". Is it arrogant to give seminars to pros? When I hired Don Murray as a writing coach at the Globe, the best writers clamored to be in his seminars.

My asterisk regarding seminars is simply this: Holding well-publicized sessions in a local hall with a qualified instructor and a come-one-come-all invitation can only happen so often and go so far. The best training takes place in the citizen journalists' midst. Generally what sets them apart from blogging is that they meet face-to-face on a regular basis. They plan their next edition, they bang around story ideas, they suggest ideas for enhancing stories being worked on by others in the group, they discuss what photos will be needed, they critique their last edition. Plop a facilitator in their midst and have even 10 minutes per meeting for some targeted training, and you've got something. If a newspaper (or other media) tries to thrust a person into their midst, it might have the adverse effect Potts worries about. But if the group has access to a volunteer, someone they are comfortable with -- a retiree, a person they invite from the local paper, a journalism teacher -- we are all winners.

My experience tells me that, just like Boston Globe veterans, citizen journalists are hungry to learn more about a trade that energizes them in a way that other activities have failed to do.

Jack Driscoll
Editor-in-Residence
MIT Media Laboratory


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Duly Noted

Re: Altered Photo on USAToday.com Criticized, Then Revised

There's more to the conservative blogosphere than Michelle Malkin and Power Line. I admire and link to both blogs, but your story leaves out important information.

A blogger named "Bucktowndusty" should be credited with starting this fire, not Malkin and Power Line for merely linking. Just one blogger's opinion. If you want to credit the source, here's the link.

La Shawn Barber