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Is The NYPD's New Spokesman A Journalist Or A Government Tool?
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Dec 16, 2013
Modified Dec 16, 2013
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Dec 16, 2013
Modified Dec 16, 2013
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CBS News reporter and former FBI spokesman John Miller is likely to join Bill Bratton's NYPD as the head of the department's press office. “As of this minute, it’s a 99.44 percent done deal,” a source told Page Six.
Miller grew up as the son of a well-known New York tabloid reporter and served as the head of the NYPD's press department during Bratton's first tenure in the mid-90s. His ability to score his boss favorable coverage in The New Yorker and Time Magazine angered Mayor Giuliani, who took the unusual step of gutting the department's press office, the office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information. Bratton would leave soon after, his reputation as an expert manager and reformer minted by Miller. (In one memorable episode, Miller was also caught lying about a conversation he had with a Daily News reporter.)
After another stint in TV news, during which he interviewed Osama bin Laden, Miller followed Bratton to the LAPD in 2003 to head that department's counterterrorism and criminal intelligence units.
From a Men's Journal profile of Miller earlier this year:
But in 2003, after Bratton took charge of the scandal-scarred LAPD, Miller gave it all up and headed West, helping establish the department's counter-terrorism and criminal-intelligence bureau. "When I told Barbara [Walters] I was leaving to be a cop in L.A., she said, 'Are you crazy?'" says Miller. But he felt he could make a bigger difference fighting terrorism than covering it.
Unlike in New York, Miller's job was operational instead of acting as spokesman, and he realized that real cop work required a real cop. So he enrolled at the city's police academy, and seven months later (he went part time), Bratton swore him in as member of the force. "It was the proudest day of his life," says Bratton. Miller then began working for the FBI as their spokesman, before returning to reporting for CBS.
Here's David Carr's fawning profile of Miller last year. It's filled with plain-spoken awe ("John Miller isn’t a psychic or a genius. He’s a senior correspondent for CBS News…") and strong-jawed quotes from colleagues ("He is the definition of a pure reporter") but almost zero scrutiny that this person repeatedly traded the job of skeptically sorting and gathering vital information for public consumption to obfuscating it for promotional purposes.
Miller has been through the revolving door so many times he had to give this disclaimer last night during a report for 60 Minutes on the NSA: "Full disclosure: I once worked in the office of the director of National Intelligence, where I saw firsthand how secretly the NSA operates."
This is appropriate, because what follows is essentially government propaganda, with no dissenting points of view, that openly casts aspersions on the "strange" behavior of "20-something-year-old high school dropout contractor" Edward Snowden.
But according to a "close friend" quoted in the Page Six item, Miller isn't entirely fulfilled by this sort of work.
“John has been doing great on television,” commented a close friend, “but at heart, he’s a ‘buff.' He wants the badge, the gun and the adrenaline—to be in the center of the action.”
Your next Deputy Commissioner for Public Information (probably).
Tagged
Bill Bratton
dcpi
deputy commissioner public information
john miller
nypd
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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