«The Wall Street Journal no estuvo a la altura"

Mariane Pearl, viuda del periodista decapitado Danny Pearl de «The Wall Street Journal", dice que el diario no estuvo a la altura de los acontecimientos, y ni siquiera envió a alguien al juicio de los secuestradores

El triste final del secuestro de Danny Pearl es de sobra conocido. Sin embargo, la historia de aquellas semanas de angustia contadas en primera persona por la viuda del periodista («Un corazón invencible», editorial MR), que siguió la investigación desde Karachi, emociona por lo que tiene de revelador. Detrás de cada secuestro de Al Qaida, y el del corresponsal de «The Wall Street Journal» fue el primero de una larga lista, hay mucho más de lo que los diarios alcanzamos a contar en unos cuantos párrafos.

–¿Cuáles son las últimas noticias de la investigación?

–Hace tres semanas asesinaron en Pakistán a uno de los mayores responsables del secuestro. Es el terrorista que intentó matar al presidente Musharraf en diciembre. Era un activista muy relevante de Al Qaida que había actuado en India. La mayoría de los autores del secuestro están o muertos o en la cárcel. El que aún no ha sido atrapado es el hombre que financió toda la operación y facilitó el lugar donde le mataron.

–¿Sabe ya cuál fue el motivo de que eligieran a su marido como víctima?

– Aún no lo sabemos, pero todo se desarrolló tras el 11-S y después de que EE UU bombardeara Afganistán. Buscaban cometer una acción terrorista y acabaron secuestrando a un ciudadano americano que, además, trabajaba para «The Wall Street Journal», con lo que eso supone.

–¿Cómo se siente ahora con la ola de secuestros en Iraq?

–Es terrible, pero en su momento ya pensé que no se iban a detener ahí. Desde el punto de vista de los terroristas la acción fue todo un éxito porque lograron entrar en la mente de todos y causar miedo.

–¿Considera que está relacionado?

–Políticamente sí porque así es como Bush justificó la guerra de Iraq. Dijo que era parte de la lucha contra el terrorismo. Y la gente de Al Zarqaui que está cometiendo secuestros en Iraq opera para Al Qaida.

–En el libro describe un par de enfrentamientos con los medios de comunicación, incluido uno muy amargo con la CNN, por la cobertura que hicieron de la tragedia.

–No es que me sienta defraudada por el periodismo, sino preocupada. La profesión ha cambiado mucho, al igual que nuestro poder y nuestra responsabilidad. Creo firmemente, más que nunca, en el poder del periodismo. El problema está en que perdamos la confianza de la gente. Un colega había sido secuestrado y los periodistas me preguntaban cosas como si dormía por las noches. Obviamente no iba a darles información de la investigación. Este tipo de actitudes se justifica con el argumento de que es lo que la audiencia quiere ver y no se dan cuenta de que también es lo que buscan los terroristas. Cuanto más aterrada me mostraba mejor funcionaba la máquina de la propaganda.

–¿Por qué mantuvo en secreto la Inteligencia paquistaní la detención de uno de los autores?

–No querían avergonzar a Musharraf, que en aquel momento estaba en Washington para ver a Bush. Trataron de evitar que el secuestro de Danny eclipsara la cumbre.

–Usted menciona que no le queda claro el papel de la CIA.

–Es que no sé lo que hicieron. Además, no podían hacer nada sin la colaboración de Pakistán. EE UU lo necesita en su lucha contra el terror.

–¿Aprendieron algo ambos países de la investigación?

–Fue la primera vez que un equipo mixto trabajaba unido. El FBI estaba muy satisfecho de colaborar con los paquistaníes. Pero se trató de individuos, los cuerpos de Inteligencia es otra cosa. La CIA dice que no trabaja con el ISI y viceversa.

–¿Cómo se portó «The Wall Street Journal» con usted?

–No estuvieron a la altura de las circunstancias. Y eso que hablamos de un medio serio. No representaron a Danny durante el juicio. Todavía no entiendo el motivo. Defienden valores como la verdad y la justicia hasta que su empresa se ve amenazada. Están más en el negocio que en el periodismo. Me ofrecieron 100.000 dólares, pero les dije que la justicia y la verdad no se compra. Yo quería que investigaran lo que había sucedido con su corresponsal, que trabajaba para ellos. Danny les representaba en Pakistán, así que lo mínimo hubiera sido que ellos le representaran en el juicio. Acabaron diciéndome que era mi juicio, no el suyo.

'Balance' in a Spinning World

Are the media's truth-squadding troops ganging up on George W. Bush? And if so, does he deserve it? In articles, columns and one internal ABC News memo, some journalists have argued that the president has engaged in far more serious distortions than John Kerry has, and that media outlets should blow the whistle on these falsehoods.

"Your instinct is that if we say bad things about one side you have to say bad things about the other side," says Adam Nagourney, the New York Times's chief political reporter. "You want to give equal scrutiny to both sides, but I don't think you should impose a false equivalence that doesn't exist."

The Bush team, which issued a release slamming a recent Nagourney story, is pushing back. "The Bush campaign should be able to make an argument without having it reflexively dismissed as distorted or inaccurate by the biggest papers in the country," says spokesman Steve Schmidt.

At issue is how far reporters should go in analyzing the candidates' attacks and ads, especially if one side is using a howitzer and the other a popgun. Mark Halperin, ABC's political director, fueled the debate with a memo that leaked to the Drudge Report.

"Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and [makes] mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win," Halperin wrote. While both sides should be held accountable, "that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that." Complaints by the Bush camp, Halperin said, are "all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped-up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions."

While some critics have mischaracterized the memo by Halperin -- one of the few journalists who sometimes criticize a leftward tilt in the press -- others see it as a revealing snapshot.

National Review Editor Rich Lowry says the memo "reflected a mindset in a lot of newsrooms that Bush's campaign is uniquely dishonest and it's the role of the media, in the simplest and crudest terms, to keep him from getting reelected -- because if he is, it would be a triumph of dishonesty." Critiquing the candidates' arguments, he says, involve "inherently tough and subjective judgments."

The campaigns bombard reporters with statistics, cite studies by ideologically compatible professors or groups and validations by sympathetic news outlets -- with phrases sometimes taken out of context. Kerry often cites a former Clinton administration official, while Bush prefers the American Enterprise Institute, which has employed Dick and Lynne Cheney.

The key question is one of magnitude. Kerry had been saying the war in Iraq has cost $200 billion; that is the current estimate, but the price tag so far is $120 billion. (Kerry adjusted his answer in the final debate.) Bush keeps charging that Kerry is pushing a "government-run" health care plan, even though nearly all analysts and journalists have concluded that it builds on the existing system of private insurance. That would seem a more fundamental misrepresentation. (Bush repeated the charge in the Arizona debate, and when Kerry cited network reports challenging the claim, the president questioned whether "it's credible to quote leading news organizations.")

Charges are often technically true but still misleading. One Bush ad said Kerry supported a 50-cent gas tax under which "the average family would pay $657 more a year." Kerry briefly expressed support for such a tax in 1994 but changed his mind and never introduced or voted for such a bill.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank was the lead writer on a May 31 story (to which this reporter made a minor contribution) that recited a litany of Bush charges, saying they "were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading."

The Oct. 8 Times piece by Nagourney and Richard Stevenson attributed to "several analysts" the idea that "Mr. Bush pushed the limits of subjective interpretation and offered exaggerated or what some Democrats said were distorted accounts of Mr. Kerry's positions on health care, tax cuts, the Iraq war and foreign policy."

Says Nagourney: "People who work for the larger papers and networks are more able to withstand attacks and have an added obligation to be out front on this."

Paul Krugman, the liberal Times columnist, writes that while Kerry might use "loose language," Bush's statements are "fundamentally dishonest. . . . Journalists who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr. Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers."

The issues and themes emphasized by daily reporting also have a huge impact on how the candidates are perceived. A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs says that Bush's coverage on the network nightly newscasts fell from 41 percent positive in June, July and August to 29 percent positive last month. The drop was more dramatic for Kerry, whose coverage plummeted from 62 percent to 38 percent positive.

A typical comment: Kerry "muddled his message and failed to make this race more about Bush than himself," said ABC's Dean Reynolds.

Was Kerry doing so much worse during this period? Or did journalists decide to go after him -- and, even more so, the president?

On Fox's "Special Report," the comments made about Kerry over the summer were an eye-opening 5 to 1 negative. In September Kerry fared only slightly better, moving from 17 percent to 21 percent positive. Is that because Fox leans Republican -- or provides a balance to the more pro-Kerry networks?

Since Oct. 1, the conservative Washington Times has run these front-page headlines, seven of them leading the paper: "Bush rips Iraq flip-flops" (in the first debate); "Bush derides Kerry stance on defense"; "Bush slams Kerry's plan to 'retreat' "; "Bush defends the war as 'just' "; "Pundits see Bush win in 2nd debate"; "Buoyed Bush goes on offensive in heartland"; "Injured, angry, determined, Swiftees united to fight Kerry"; "Bush hits Kerry's view on terror"; "Bush seeks to paint a liberal"; "Energized Bush rips Kerry" (in the third debate). The stories contained true information, but the emphasis has been decidedly one-sided.

Whatever their orientation, journalists are the last line of defense against public deception. If they fail to challenge distortions by politicians, they might as well join the stenography pool.

Long-Distance Coverage

Ron Brownstein went to the first presidential debate in Florida, which convinced him to cover the next two from Washington.

"For me it's a slam-dunk issue: Dateline or deadline?" says the Los Angeles Times correspondent. "In Miami I was sitting in a crowded, loud room where I had so little space I couldn't keep a legal pad next to the computer to take notes. I was far from a TV. I could not print out transcripts." And because the official feed didn't include the network cutaway shots of an unhappy George Bush, Brownstein "couldn't get a good sense" of what Americans were seeing.

Others have also concluded that flying across the country to watch the event on TV is a waste of time. "Debates are television events," says Adam Nagourney of the New York Times. "I don't see any reason to watch it in a filing center." Besides, he says, the postgame spin room "has become this incredible joke" in which people "degrade each other."

But Washington Post reporter Dan Balz says that "we ought to be on the scene. You can actually get a decent amount of reporting done because there's a concentration of people there."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

An Unmoveable Feast of Hemingway History Struggles to Survive

By GINGER THOMPSON
The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO DE PAULA, Cuba - Ernest Hemingway's work made him a citizen of the world. But he made this tiny community of artisans on the outskirts of Havana his only real home. Now caretakers are fighting to keep his country villa, set high on a hill looking out to the sea, just the way he left it four decades ago.

It is, as expected, a decidedly masculine place, cluttered with books about war and hunting - the library contains about 9,000 volumes - and decorated with African animal trophies and bullfight posters. The bar is stocked with rum and Cinzano bottles. There's a Glenn Miller album on the record player. The table is set for guests.

But in what architects describe as a preservation emergency, the house, known as Finca Vigía or Lookout Farm, is tumbling down. An effort to save the finca, an American cultural treasure and an important Cuban tourist attraction, seems threatened by a storm of politics.

Nature has been hostile to the house over the years, experts say, with rain and creeping vegetation penetrating the walls and the foundation. The roof leaks, the walls are turning green with mold, the floors are buckling and termites are devouring the wooden frame. The bedroom where Hemingway wrote some of his greatest works, including "The Old Man and the Sea," is so close to collapsing that its furniture has been moved into storage.

"We have cared for this house with great affection for many years, because we Cubans consider Hemingway one of ours," said Gladys Rodriguez, president of the Hemingway International Institute of Journalism in Havana and one of the principal caretakers of the author's legacy in Cuba.

"We will keep doing all that we can," she said. "But we cannot deny that we need help. This museum legally belongs to Cuba, but morally it pertains to the United States."



A group of American preservationists, architects and Hemingway biographers offered to come to the rescue earlier this year. The Hemingway Preservation Foundation applied for a license that would exempt it from the United States' 40-year-old economic embargo against Cuba and allow it to provide money and expertise to help restore the finca. The foundation, led by Frank and Jenny Phillips, estimates that the project would cost $2 million to $3 million.

The Bush administration denied the foundation's request in June, saying its project would support tourism and thus help the economy of the hemisphere's last Communist outpost. The request came at a time of increasing tension between the two countries. In March 2003 the Bush administration announced new restrictions on travel and cash transfers to Cuba, saying that the measures were aimed at weakening Fidel Castro's 45-year grip on the island and at opening the way for democracy.

Molly Millerwise, a spokeswoman for the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department, which administers the embargo against Cuba, said, "We do not want to facilitate something that puts dollars into Castro's hands."

Ms. Millerwise said she could not discuss the details of individual licensing decisions. But broadly, she said, Assets Control has licensed numerous projects that provide humanitarian assistance, including food and medicine, and that support religious outreach, and academic and cultural exchanges.

In fact, two years ago, it approved a license request by the Hemingway Preservation Foundation to save a trove of papers and photographs stored in Hemingway's basement at the finca. Hemingway biographers say the papers - including early drafts of major works, a copy of the screenplay for "The Old Man and the Sea" with notes scribbled in the margins, letters from people including Ingrid Bergman and the editor Maxwell Perkins, and recipes - promise to shed light on a part of the author's life that Cuba has kept locked away like a state secret.

Under the agreement between the United States and Cuba, the documents are being repaired and preserved, and copies will be sent to the Hemingway collection in the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. But sending American money to help save Hemingway's house, Ms. Millerwise said, is a different matter. She said the embargo expressly prohibits the United States from supporting "travel-related or tourism-related projects that generate money for the Cuban economy." Saving precious documents is legal, she says. Saving a tourist attraction is not.

Thomas D. Herman, a specialist in international law who represents the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, said the government's denial reflects a "narrow interpretation of the law." The finca is much more than a tourist attraction, he said. It is an invaluable part of America's heritage. The foundation plans to appeal the Treasury Department's decision later this month, though it may not receive a ruling before next month's presidential elections, Mr. Herman said. But the finca cannot wait. "The next hurricane could do irreparable damage," he said. "Time is of the essence to save Finca Vigía."

Leland D. Cott, the chief architect on the project, agreed. "I am not going to make any judgments about whether Castro is good or bad," said Mr. Cott, of Bruner-Cott & Associates in Boston. "My concern is that there is an important artifact rotting in the jungle, and it needs to be saved."

"The Cuban government is not going to last forever, and we need to look at the long-term," he added. "We could look back on this 20 years from now and realize we lost a important part of our heritage because of some political fight."

Finca Vigía, a breezy country house set on 15 sloping acres of mango, avocado and ceiba trees, is widely considered the place where Hemingway put down the deepest roots. The biographer A. E. Hotchner said Hemingway had no spiritual connection to the house in Ketchum, Idaho, where he spent the last two years of his life struggling against depression. And the house where he lived in Key West, Fla., contains only a few of his belongings and little of his history.



Cubans have kept Hemingway's memory alive. Four decades after he left Cuba, there are still people who can remember him sitting in their kitchens for coffee, dancing at their weddings. They have made small shrines of his favorite room at the Ambos Mundos Hotel, his favorite bar stool at La Floridita and his favorite table at La Terraza. And the Cuban government gave Hemingway's first mate, Gregorio Fuentes, a free meal at La Terraza every day until he died in 2002, at 104.

Hemingway bought Finca Vigía, built by a Spanish architect in the late 1800's, in 1939 for about $18,500. In the cool early mornings, writing while standing in his leather moccasins, he produced "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and manuscripts that would be published posthumously, including "A Moveable Feast" and "Islands in the Stream."

Keepsakes scattered through the big, airy rooms tell stories that seem larger than life. The war correspondent uniforms in the closet recall Hemingway's coverage of World War II. There's a sculpture by Picasso and an engraved bowl from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. There are copies of photographs of triumphant deep-sea fishing expeditions and of drunken pool parties with Ava Gardner and Errol Flynn. There is a photograph from the day he won the Nobel Prize.

There are also rare glimpses of the private obsessions of a literary celebrity. Hemingway's bathroom seems like some jungle laboratory, with a jar of lion lard for soothing sunburned skin next to a lizard that he preserved in a jar of formaldehyde because of its brave, although suicidal, fight against one of the author's more than 50 cats. And on the walls, there are his daily notes recording his weight and blood pressure. The last scribble, Ms. Rodriguez says, is from March 6, 1960. Hemingway left Cuba around then, and after stops in New York and Madrid, he bought the house in Ketchum. Relatives have said he was shattered by the American-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, because it meant that he could not go back to the home he loved. He committed suicide almost three months later.

His Cuban house stands as a kind of undisturbed tomb. Most visitors are allowed only to peek through the doors and windows. Ms. Rodriguez allowed a rare walk inside. "We want visitors to feel like the owner of the house could walk in at any moment and offer them a drink," she said. "It is not only his writing that makes Hemingway immortal. So does this house."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Reporter Held in Contempt of Court Again in Leaks Probe

By Susan Schmidt / Washington Post

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper was held in contempt of court a second time yesterday for refusing to reveal confidential source information sought by a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA employee's identity.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Cooper jailed for as long as 18 months, but stayed his order until after the case is heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Hogan found Time magazine in civil contempt for failing to produce documents and imposed a $1,000-a-day fine on the publication, suspended until after the appeal.

Last week, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was found in contempt of court in the same investigation. Cooper and Time will join her appeal.

It was the second contempt finding for Cooper in the investigation of whether someone in the government illegally disclosed the name and identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to members of the media.

"As Yogi Berra says, 'It's deja vu all over again,' " Hogan said as he greeted the parties at yesterday's hearing.

The first contempt citation against Cooper was vacated after he agreed in August to provide limited testimony about conversations he had with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. Cooper did so at Libby's "personal, unambiguous and unequivocal" urging, said attorney Floyd Abrams, who represents Cooper, Time and Miller. Reporters for The Washington Post and NBC News have also provided limited depositions with Libby's consent after receiving subpoenas.

Cooper told reporters yesterday that he had tried to accommodate special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in agreeing to be deposed about his conversations with Libby, but that Fitzgerald "came back a few days later and asked for everything in my notebook." He and Abrams said Fitzgerald is seeking to question him about other conversations he had in preparing the July 17 article.

During the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Fleissner told Hogan that prosecutors decided they needed a second subpoena for information because of a new topic that emerged during the first deposition. Prosecutors, he said, have been "deferential" to the media, agreeing to limit questioning to narrow areas.

"It doesn't exactly represent deference to the media to seek to put journalists in jail," Abrams said.

Hogan said the prosecutor has shown him grand jury material that has convinced him of the need to question Cooper further. Hogan has previously cited a 1972 Supreme Court case, Branzberg v. Hayes, in ruling that reporters have no First Amendment protection against appearing before grand juries.

Cooper wrote in a July 17, 2003, online story that government officials had revealed Plame's employment in seeking to cast doubt on the findings of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson, a foreign policy critic of the Bush administration, was sent by the CIA in 2002 to look into whether Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African country of Niger for its weapons program, but he found no proof.

Plame's identity surfaced in print three days before the Time article, in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak. Novak wrote that two administration officials told him Wilson was sent to Niger at Plame's recommendation. Neither Novak nor his lawyer has commented on whether Novak has been subpoenaed to testify.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Contempt Cases Involving Journalists

-CIA Leak: Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of The New York Times are appealing a federal judge's ruling that they must reveal sources to investigators probing the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity. Both face possible jail time. Other reporters have given testimony after their sources released them from promises of confidentiality.

-Wen Ho Lee: Five reporters are challenging a federal judge's decision ordering disclosure of sources who gave them information about scientist Lee, who was once accused of spying. Facing possible fines of $500 a day until the sources are disclosed are Associated Press reporter H. Josef Hebert; James Risen and Jeff Gerth of The New York Times; Robert Drogin of the Los Angeles Times; and Pierre Thomas of ABC, who was at CNN when the stories were done.

-Providence corruption: Jim Taricani, a reporter for Providence, R.I., television station WJAR, in August began paying a fine of $1,000 a day for his refusal to say who gave him an FBI tape stemming from a city hall corruption investigation.

Federal Probe Poses Dilemma for Journalists

By JAMES BANDLER
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

When it comes to defending their rights from government interference, big news organizations -- keen to protect both reporters and sources -- usually are on the same page: resist, resist, resist.

But in the wake of a federal prosecutor's gambit to compel journalists to testify in a high-profile criminal case, news companies are struggling to hold their ethical ground. None want to disclose the anonymous sources so crucial to the reporting process, especially in Washington.



However, as the prospect of jail time and fines looms, several media firms are striking compromise agreements: with their sources' assent, they are open to giving the prosecutor at least some of what he or she wants.

So far, the federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has subpoenaed at least five prominent reporters in his investigation of the leaked identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame. New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who did reporting on the story, but never wrote about it, is resisting. Ms. Miller has refused to testify even though one of her sources, I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, has given her permission to talk, according to Mr. Libby's attorney.

Today, a federal judge will decide whether to hold Ms. Miller in contempt of court and whether to jail and fine her, or issue a stay pending her appeal.

Other reporters have talked with the special prosecutor. Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, was held in contempt after he refused to cooperate. But he eventually did speak with Mr. Fitzgerald after a source, Mr. Libby, gave a personal waiver of confidentiality for him to talk. The contempt order against Mr. Cooper was lifted, but soon after that Mr. Fitzgerald issued a fresh subpoena to Mr. Cooper seeking information about other sources.

The pressure to testify shows how many lawyers think they're operating without a safety net. Though "shield" laws that protect journalists from being compelled to testify have been enacted in 31 states, no such federal statute exists. The one time the Supreme Court ruled on the matter, in 1972, it ruled against journalists, finding in that case, at least, that the First Amendment does not protect journalists called before a criminal grand jury.

"There really is a level of disagreement in the journalistic community about whether journalists should testify -- even if they have the unambiguous and unequivocal consent of their sources," says Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer. He is representing both Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper.

In explaining why Mr. Cooper agreed to talk and why Ms. Miller won't, Mr. Abrams said Mr. Cooper was first asked to testify and produce documents only about Mr. Libby. Later, when Mr. Libby agreed that he could do so, Mr. Cooper did. Subsequently, when Mr. Fitzgerald sought testimony about other sources of Mr. Cooper's, he refused to comply. In the case of Ms. Miller, Mr. Abrams said the information sought has always related to sources that were and remain confidential.

News organizations now find themselves in a tricky legal bind. On the one hand, if they refuse to cooperate with the government, they may be held in contempt of court, fined and have their reporters jailed. On the other hand, if they violate a promise of confidentiality, the Supreme Court has held that the source can sue them for damages arising from the breach of that promise.

The origins of the current CIA dispute lie in the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who printed her name in a July 2003 column that attributed the information to unidentified senior administration officials. Mr. Novak won't say whether he has cooperated with prosecutors.

The disclosure, an apparent violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a federal law that makes it illegal to leak the name of an undercover officer, appeared in a column by Mr. Novak about Ms. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Mr. Wilson had been sharply critical of the Bush administration for

claiming that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Nigeria as part of its weapons program.

The case was referred to Mr. Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago and a career prosecutor with a strong reputation for nonpartisan professionalism. In January, Mr. Fitzgerald asked administration officials to sign waivers of their rights to have confidential conversations. After seeking records of White House contacts with reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald began trying to question reporters, issuing subpoenas to Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," and Time's Mr. Cooper.

Both news organizations unsuccessfully fought to have the subpoenas quashed. Mr. Russert agreed to be questioned by prosecutors in August. NBC said Mr. Russert testified only about what he said in a conversation with Mr. Libby.

Ms. Miller of the Times has refused to accept at face value Mr. Libby's waiver and his lawyer's assurance that any such willingness to talk is not being coerced.

One concern of Ms. Miller, says Mr. Abrams, is the open-ended nature of the inquest. Her agreeing to speak about one source could lead to questions about others.And Ms. Miller worries about principle: "She thinks that journalists testifying about interviews with sources will adversely impact their ability to have confidential sources in the future," says Mr. Abrams.

Ms. Miller's use of confidential sources in the past has made her a controversial figure. (In a separate case related to a federal raid on an Islamic charity, the Times last week sued Attorney General John Ashcroft to stop the Justice Department from obtaining phone records of conversations Ms. Miller and another Times reporter had with sources.)

She helped spearhead the Times's weapons-of-mass-destruction coverage in the months leading up to and following the Iraq war. In an extraordinary article from the editors that did not name Ms. Miller but that cited several of her articles as unfortunate examples, the Times issued a lengthy mea culpa admitting that some of its coverage "was not as rigorous as it should have been."

Mr. Abrams said that if one had to pick a journalist to have her case heard by the courts, "Ms. Miller would be at the top of the list."