Judith Miller

For other people named Judith Miller, see Judith Miller (disambiguation).

Judith Miller
Miller in 2018
Born (1948-01-02) January 2, 1948 (age 76)
New York City, U.S.
EducationColumbia University (BA)
Princeton University (MPA)
Spouse
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(m. 1993; died 2022)​
RelativesBill Miller (father)
Jimmy Miller (half-brother)

Judith Miller (born January 2, 1948)[1] is an American journalist and commentator who is known for writing about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, but her writings were later discovered to have been based on fabricated intelligence.[2][3] She worked in the Washington bureau of The New York Times before joining Fox News in 2008.

Miller co-wrote a book Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, which became a top New York Times best seller shortly after she became a victim of a hoax anthrax letter at the time of the 2001 anthrax attacks.[4]

The New York Times determined that several stories she wrote about Iraq were inaccurate, and she was forced to resign from the paper in 2005.[2] According to commentator Ken Silverstein, Miller's Iraq reporting "effectively ended her career as a respectable journalist".[5] Miller defended her reporting, stating "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."[6] She published a memoir, The Story: A Reporter's Journey, in April 2015.[7]

Miller was involved in the Plame Affair, where Valerie Plame was outed as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spy by Richard Armitage after Plame’s husband published a New York Times op-ed casting doubts on claims that Saddam Hussein sought to purchase uranium from Africa. Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal that her source in the Plame Affair was Scooter Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Later, she contributed to the conservative Fox News Channel and Newsmax, and was a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.[8][9]

  1. ^ "UPI Almanac for Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019". United Press International. January 2, 2019. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019. journalist Judith Miller in 1948 (age 71)
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference foer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ James Moore (May 28, 2004). "How Chalabi and the White House held the front page: The New York Times has burned its reputation on a pyre of lies about Iraq". The Guardian. London, UK. Archived from the original on June 25, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2017.
  4. ^ Judith Miller (Oct. 14, 2001), "A NATION CHALLENGED: THE LETTER; Fear Hits Newsroom In a Cloud of Powder Archived 2018-10-27 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times.
  5. ^ Ken Silverstein (Aug. 15, 2013), Anatomy of an Al Qaeda “Conference Call” Archived 2013-08-20 at the Wayback Machine, Harper's.
  6. ^ When the Press Fails. Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion. University of Chicago Press. 2008. p. 37.
  7. ^ Klein, Julia M. (April 22, 2015). "Judith Miller tells her side of The Story". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on June 21, 2017. Retrieved May 21, 2017.
  8. ^ Alex Pareene (Dec. 30, 2010) "Judith Miller: From the Times to the nuts", Salon.
  9. ^ Hagey, Keach (December 29, 2010). "Judith Miller joins Newsmax". Politico. Archived from the original on October 10, 2012. Retrieved March 29, 2013.