Salon: Bad News (Novak and protecting sources)

[kskiska]

White House errand boy Robert Novak and credulous New York Times reporters were burned by their sources. Should they be forced to name them?

By Eric Boehlert

As U.S. courts take an increasingly skeptical look at the long-held belief among journalists that they enjoy a special privilege when it comes to protecting their sources, two high-profile legal skirmishes are addressing that very issue. Unfortunately for advocates of a free press, these battles don't involve stirring instances of media courage, but stories that exemplify what many believe is wrong with journalism today.

"We often have to defend the principle of protecting sources on the least appealing grounds," says Geneva Overholser, a professor at the University of Missouri Journalism School and a former editor of the Des Moines Register. "We can't pick the circumstances. If we could, we'd pick cases prettier than this."

The press's working model for confidentiality has often focused on government employees who risk their careers in order to help uncover a gross injustice that would have otherwise remained hidden. Think of Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, or the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein protecting their Watergate sources more than 30 years later.

But what about sources who hide behind their confidentiality agreements and mislead reporters to score political points via the press? What about those who lie or break the law with their disclosures? As Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer recently noted, the argument for confidentiality "is undermined by the increasingly common practice of government sources using reporters to spread falsehoods or discredit foes, knowing reporters will hide their identity."

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/01/22/confidentiality/index.html

[unblock]

1. i always thought it was a matter of duty and honor, not law

i thought that reporters did NOT have a legal privilege to conceal sources, which is why every so often a reporter is held in contempt and spends days or months in jail until the judge finally gives up.

in those cases, i thought the law did require the reporter to reveal the source, but the reporter refuses out of some newsman's code of honor.

lawyer- or doctor- client privilege makes sense because you don't want people afraid to be honest and candid out of fear of later testimony.

this doesn't really apply to the press, however. is it really so important that public officials be able to speak anonymously? there's some merit to that point of view, but i don't think it's nearly as compelling as the lawyer- or doctor- situations.


especially, e.g., when the reporter knows that he's merely being complicit in some slander, extortion, blackmail, or, in this case, revealing classified information and endangering innocent lives for no reason beyond the political jollies of his source....

[Jim Sagle]

2. Republican reporters are protected by law. Other reporters go to jail.

[baby_bear]

3. Yes, unblock, it's very important

If government employees can't speak with reporters "off the record" about malfeasance in the government, then the information would never get out, because of fear for one's job and/or other retribution.

It's important for the public to have the press be able to protect their sources.

As Sheer pointed out, when the "source" manipulates the press, it sets the whole thing on its head. I wonder if Novak feels used.
He should.

s_m

[roguevalley]

4. Its hard to feel used if you're a tool to start with.

[Democat]

5. Why would he feel used? He got the job done for his bosses.

Does Oliver North feel used? No. He did what he was expected to do and he was rewarded a hundred times over.

Novak works for Bush (or his handlers), don't believe anything else.