AlterNet: The 9/11 Story That Got Away:
"'Even that weekend, there was lot else going on. There was always a lot going on at the White House, so to a certain extent, there was that kind of 'cry wolf' problem. But I got the sense that part of the reason that I was being told of what was going on was that the people in counter-terrorism were trying to get the word to the president or the senior officials through the press, because they were not able to get listened to themselves.

'Sometimes, you wonder about why people tell you things and why people … we always wonder why people leak things, but that's a very common motivation in Washington. I remember once when I was a reporter in Egypt, and someone from the agency gave me very good material on terrorism and local Islamic groups.

'I said, 'Why are you doing this? Why are you giving this to me?' and he said, 'I just can't get my headquarters to pay attention to me, but I know that if it's from the New York Times, they're going to give it a good read and ask me questions about it.' And there's also this genuine concern about how, if only the president shared the sense of panic and concern that they did, more would be done to try and protect the country."

But even if they printed the story, THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T READ THE NEWSPAPER! One of the problems with print journalism as it is practiced today is this obsession with "the story". Ms. Miller was working on this epic Al Qaida story for months and months, unable to print anything because she didn't have the complete arc yet. She has these leaks about an impending attack that, to me, an untrained eye/ear for sure, seem to be much more worrisome to the CT people yet she can't print it because she can't complete "the story"! Why not go with what you have, with something called THE FACTS and let the reader think about it a little. "Security Experts More Worried Than Usual" would be a good one. This is one great benefit of the rise of blogging: stuff gets out there! Yes, the onus is on the recipient to make sense of it all and to construct their own "story" but in reality it always has been and even if you are presented with "the story"in the print media you HAVE to read it with the knowledge that this has all been filtered already for you. Stuff is missing, sutff was added. Caveat emptor is always advisable and will always be advisable. Thanks for nothing Tom Wolfe!