Judith Miller TomPaine +NOLA Art Link

David Corn

My favorite quote from the day-after coverage of Miller-mania came from CNN's Jeff Greenfield. After a colloquy with Wolf Blitzer--in which the two puzzled over the Times articles--Greenfield said, "The more I read about this, the less I understand it, Wolf." I like Greenfield, and he is a sharp fellow. But was he suggesting that perhaps his viewers would be better served if he read less? Maybe that's what TV is for.

my interest in Shearer's art? His Katrina piece appears in a public art exhibition now up in Washington, DC, called Found Sound that was curated by Welmoed Laanstra, who happens to be my spouse. Shearer is one of nine artists who contributed sound-related art to the project. (Other participants include artists Richard Chartier, Joseph Grigely, Alberto Gaitan, Brandon Morse, and Robin Rose.) And most of the art is being featured in sound booths--reconfigured Port-a-Potties--that have been placed on sidewalks across town. The point is to encourage folks who don't usually hit the art galleries and museums to spend a few moments contemplating this relatively new art form.

Here's a clip from the press release for the project:

By placing the sound booths on the sidewalk, the project will make this innovative art accessible to a large number of people," says Welmoed Laanstra, the exhibit's curator. "The aim is to create a public experience focused on the developing field of sound art."...In an essay for the project, Nora Halpern, a vice president of Americans for the Arts observes, "Most traditional exhibitions inhabit contiguous spaces, but FOUND SOUND entices the listener to crisscross a city to experience fully this collection of work. As one leaves a destination for another--whether by foot, car, bus, or Metro--the heightened audio awareness encouraged by each piece should continue, like a musical riff, through all the spaces in between." Writer/humorist Calvin Trillin contributed a poem to the project.

The project runs until November 5; the sound booths tend to be open during gallery hours. For all the locations and a complete list of artists--only Shearer plays with media sound--check out the exhibit's website at www.foundsounddc.com. And The Washington Post published a fine write-up of the project. (Click here.) We now interrupt this infomercial to return to our regularly scheduled blog.

==============

Also, as NPR's David Folkenflik reported yesterday (in a segment that featured yours truly), when Miller agreed to identify Scooter Libby as an unnamed "former Hill staffer" and not as a senior administration official in return for obtaining critical information on Wilson from Libby, she was violating the Times policy on anonymous sourcing. The paper requires reporters to characterize an unnamed source accurately so readers can evaluate if this source has an agenda. So why was Miller not fired or disciplined for this breach? Though she ended up not writing a piece on Wilson, she admits in her first-person account she colluded with Libby to conceal a White House attack on Wilson. At the least, Keller should issue an editor's note.

But this underscores my what-were-they-thinking criticism. Didn't Keller (and other top editors) and publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. read Miller's article and say to themselves something like "whoa!" (or "oh shit!")? How could they read the weird ending of her piece (see below) and not immediately say, "the Times does not end explanatory articles with non sequitur-ish anecdotes that read like riddles"? How could they not review the "news" article on the Miller case and say, "We need more of a push-back on Miller's failure to recall who told her about 'Valerie Flame' and 'Victoria Wilson'? How could they not demand that both Miller and the three-reporter team provide more details about the sudden discovery of the missing notebook that contained notes from Miller's first interview with Libby about Joseph Wilson? How could they not read Miller's description of a security clearance she obtained (in order to be an embedded reporter with WMD-hunting teams) and not see that the paper's readers deserved a full explanation of this curious matter? (Former CBS News national security correspondent Bill Lynch wrote a long and critical letter about this part of Miller's story; that note is posted Jim Romenesko's media news site at www.poynter.org. Click here.)

link = http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001306732
< groan>

awful = no anchors/indexes apparent in that blog>//

=================

===========