Debate Over Politicization of Terror Alerts

From Editor & Publisher:

In recent days, news outlets as varied as The New York Times, Fox News, CNN and the BBC have run stories speculating on the motivations behind the raising of the terror alert for New York, Washington and northern New Jersey -- all home to key financial sites.

Now, newspaper editorial pages are weighing in on the question.

When Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge raised the alert Sunday, he did not mention that much of the surveillance activity he cited was at least three years old. On Tuesday, when the age of the intelligence was revealed, government officials said that there was an indication of reconnaissance updates as recently as January. But neither Ridge nor any other official said how much of the information may have been updated.

While the overwhelming sentiment among the nation's larger circulating newspapers has been to not criticize the motivations behind the latest warning, despite credibility problems surrounding the Iraq war, The New York Times did challenge the administration's claims.

On its editorial page, the Times on Tuesday said that it was right to step up security at the terror-prone sites, "But it's unfortunate that it is necessary to fight suspicions of political timing, suspicions the administration has sown by misleading the public on security."

Then, on Thursday, a Times editorial raising questions about the terror alerts noted that the White House had "expressed outrage at the suggestion that there could be any politics behind any of its warnings, but the president has some history to overcome on this issue...Some of the past terror alerts have seemed aimless and happened when the Bush administration would have benefited from a change in the political conversation."

It also hit Tom Ridge, in his latest terror announcement, for doing "a real disservice to himself, his president and the public by giving what amounted to a campaign pitch for 'the president's leadership in the war against terror.""