After reports broke that the Department of Justice would be holding an off-the-record meeting with members of the press to discuss its policies on monitoring journalists, New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson announced that the Gray Lady would not be attending.
“We will not be attending the session at DOJ,” Abramson told the Huffington Post. “It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off the record meeting with the attorney general. Our Washington bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak investigations at this time.”
The Times did say that its counsel would be happy to meet with the Department of Justice on “how the law should be applied in leak cases.”
The Huffington Post reported that “it seems likely other news organizations will similarly decline to meet with Holder,” but did not say whether its Washington chief, Ryan Grim, would or would not. One thing is certain: journalistic willingness to go along with the Department of Justice has thinned dramatically in recent weeks.