American Views Abroad

 
Concerned Citizens vent their frustration on how the media, in this case the International Herald Tribune, has been covering Karl Rove's involvement in outing the identity of CIA agent Valerier Plame. These letters to the editor were sent out on 11 July 2005. Will any or all be published?




To the Editor:

The revelation that Karl Rove leaked the identity of a CIA
operative to the news media deserves more thorough coverage than The International Herald Tribune has devoted to it. Is the Tribune cowed by a repressive Administration, or is it simply patronizing its readers by assuming we consider it 'old news' since rumors of Rove's involvement have been circulating for a while?
Whatever the reason for failing to cover the facts and implications
of this critical story, it is a colossal failure of accountability to the readers you purport to serve.

Sincerely,

Diana Shaw Clark
London



Subject: Rove & your coverage
Date: July 11, 2005
To: letters@iht.com

It's increasingly clear that Karl Rove was the source for the revelation that Joe Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA agent -- revelation of which is a federal felony. The story of this case is extremely important and so far the Herald Trib's coverage of it has been thin and patchy..

For example, your coverage of Newsweek's report on the matter was
buried on page 5 of the July 4th edition, given short shrift with 4 paragraphs under 'Briefly Americas' (and being a holiday, many Americans abroad probably won't even see that edition....). Yet on the same day, you deem a sensational story about a Romanian exorcist worthy of front page coverage, a photo, & jump to page 4 for a total of 29 paragraphs!

Which story do you think has more significance to the United States and
to your readers?

This is just one example of the IHT's increasing tendency to bury
important political stories while giving front page coverage to features that belong on your back page.

While you take up Judith Miller's jailing in an editorial and while the
inexplicably banished Frank Rich is happily back today with an excellent piece, your news coverage really warrants a more thoughtful and
comprehensive approach, especially concerning the Rove/Plame case and
all its ramifications.
We're living in times worse than McCarthyism and worse than Watergate. Please fulfill your duties as the Fourth Estate!


Meredith Wheeler
Lautrec, France


Dear Sir:

If American journalism faces today a so-called 'credibility crisis' it
is surely in no small part the fault of negligent reporting.

To treat the scandalous news of Karl Rove's career assassination of
Valerie Plame as a merely incidental footnote (as you did on the Fourth
of July, burying the piece in the BRIEFLY AMERICAS section) you
endanger your newspaper's reputation. Unless, of course, the exorcism
of Romanian nuns is to be believed of higher importance to the United
States, as one would believe, waking incredulously to the first page of
your July fourth edition.

This apparatchik-like complicity does more to soil the reputation of
journalism than a legion of delirious Jayson Blairs.

Sincerely,

Matthew Hicks
Toulouse, France



Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005
To:
Subject: The Valerie Plame affair

As a member of American Voices Abroad, I volunteered to be part of a
group that called itself 'IHT Watch.' Each day during the run-up to the 2004 Election, one of us would scrutinise the paper and disseminate our observations. It soon began to feel as if we were in Soviet Russia in the Stalinist era looking for signs of dissent in the pages of Pravda. The
IHT followed the official line of the Bush administration without hesitation, publishing in the pages of 'news' handouts from the US government as if they described actual events! It provided us with a first hand sense of the dismal state of the Fourth Estate. The press no longer functions as the watchdog. It has accepted the role of cheerleader. Further confirmation
of this has been provided by your recent burial of the [probable]
involvement of Karl Rove as the insider who revealed the identity of Valerie Plame in the 'yellow-cake uranium' fiction. That someone so highly placed in this Administration could have been involved in an act that constitutes treason is a matter that deserves to be shouted from the rooftops. It is no wonder that the American people are not aware of what is going on in their government when the press chooses to join and encourage the national
state of torpor and denial.

Robert Higgins - France

- posted by Gloria @ 5:10 PM