Judith Miller, the former NYT reporter who "left the paper" a year ago in the wake of her Plamegate and Iraq WMD debacles, has decried government secrecy and the willingness of bloggers to accept assertions as fact without considering evidence to the contrary.

Make your own joke here. (h/t to Jim Elve).

Some excerpts from the Nov. 11 CJ Online story:

Judith Miller, a former New York Times investigative reporter who went to jail to protect a confidential source, said the balance between national security and civil liberties has been tipped, allowing the Bush administration to become secretive about its decisions, intrusive into public lives and reluctant to share information the public has a right to know.

Miller said many Americans don't understand how their access to information and the freedom of the press have been affected in the past few years.

"We are less free and less safe," she said, explaining that there is a "growing secrecy in the name of national security."

Miller, who spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal a source in the Valerie Plame case, spoke Friday morning at Kansas State University as part of the "Community Readiness Communications: Accurate Messages in Times of Crisis" conference. ...

How can an electorate be free and informed if it is denied information? Miller asked. Without a free press, such stories as the torture of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, warrantless wiretapping and CIA prisons in Eastern Europe wouldn't have been reported, she said.

"People need to know what the government is doing in order to debate," she said.

Miller said the American media, however, give the federal government reason to doubt its motives and competence each time it is discovered that an article is plagiarized or gossip is reported as fact.

The blurring of entertainment and news and the relaxing of journalistic standards can be seen in online bloggers who are critical of people without giving them an opportunity to respond or who don't post corrections when they learn that what they have posted is wrong, she said.

"I'm worried about bloggers," she said. "(A post) starts as a rumor and within 24 hours it's repeated as fact."

While she advocates a federal shield law to protect mainstream journalists from divulging their sources, she doesn't favor extending that to bloggers who don't follow the standards and ethnics of the journalism industry.

Still, she wouldn't restrict a blogger's right to publish online. She said some bloggers have been invaluable in uncovering government flaws.

"I'm glad to welcome them as long as they agree to the standards," she said.

Do a search on Judith Miller in my archives and see what comes up! But long-time media watchers will know she did some rather breathless reporting on WMDs in Iraq that turned out to be spectacularly wrong. Some of her harsher critics blame her for helping the Bush administration "sell" its war in Iraq.

What the hell, I'll make it easier for you. Here's one key post, and here's another.