Newspaper Withholding Two Articles After Jailing

[Goldmund]

The editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer said last night that the newspaper, acting on the advice of its lawyers, was withholding publication of two major investigative articles because they were based on illegally leaked documents and could lead to penalties against the paper and the jailing of reporters.

The editor, Doug Clifton, said lawyers for The Plain Dealer had concluded that the newspaper, Ohio's largest daily, would probably be found culpable if the authorities were to investigate the leaks and that reporters might be forced to identify confidential sources to a grand jury or go to jail.

"Basically, we have come by material leaked to us that would be problematical for the person who leaked it," Mr. Clifton said in a telephone interview. "The material was under seal or something along those lines."

In an earlier interview with the trade journal Editor & Publisher, which published an article on its Web site late yesterday, Mr. Clifton said that lawyers for The Plain Dealer and its owner, Newhouse Newspapers, had strongly recommended against publication of the articles.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/national/09cleveland.html?ex=1278561600&en=b6692f7dc6b3dc45&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[Moochy]

1. We are better off in the dark

Probably just conspiracy theories anyways.. were safer not knowing, right dkos?

/ducks

cmon, I kid !

[gristy]

2. This was posted earlier, and I've started to wonder...

Might The Plain Dealer leak the article?
Will they somehow get the information to Fitzgerald (or whoever may be appropriate)?

[baby_bear]

4. No reason to believe this is of interest to FItzgerald

It sounds to me like the editor of the Plain Dealer is being cowardly or disingenuous.

b_b

[pacifictiger]

3. the thing that strikes me

about these journalist sources stories is that they are all being lumped in the same catagory - to print or not to print. Fear factor, we might go to jail.

But nobody in the corporate media is discussing the importance of the REASON behind the story; i.e. who will it protect and who will it benefit.
Leaking the name of Plame was both illegal and of no direct benefit to the public at large.

One the other hand, leaking the facts of a story that highlights an illegal activity, and is of huge public importance surely must be placed in a different catagory, illegal source or not. And what makes the source illegal? Someone signing a confidentiality agreement, or the outing of a foreign based intelligence agent?

Maybe some of us can begin writing letters to editors pointing out this fundamental difference. Maybe it could start some more sheep thinking rather than just being fed more pablum.

edited typos

[ThomWV]

5. Sounds Like Bullshit To Me

So why didn't they publish them last week?

Bullshit.

[Garbo 2004]

6. And yet it was previously the case that reporters could be found in

contempt for not cooperating with a court and be sentenced to jail. Nothing new. The newspaper doesn't want to potentially face penalties but they weren't previously immune from such action either. The Plame case has changed nothing in that regard.

Here's one example from 2001:

Freelance writer and book author Vanessa Leggett was released from federal custody in Houston on Jan. 4, after serving 168 days in jail for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury and turn over her research materials. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals sitting in Houston (5th Cir.) upheld the July 20 contempt order on August 17, finding journalists do not have a right to refuse to testify before a grand jury. http://www.rcfp.org/leggett.html

And another more recently:

Television reporter released early from home confinement
Two months before his sentence was set to end, television reporter Jim Taricani won freedom from home confinement for refusing to identify a confidential source.

April 12, 2005 -- The court battle between federal prosecutors and a television reporter Jim Taricani is over after U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres granted a request last week to cut short his six-month home confinement sentence by two months.

Taricani is expected to return to work Wednesday at WJAR television in Providence, R.I. Torres signed an order for early release Wednesday, but the order did not take effect until Saturday. Taricani had been confined to his home since Dec. 9 when Torres sentenced him for criminal contempt-of-court for refusing to reveal the confidential source of a videotape showing a Providence official taking a bribe from an FBI informant.

In a one-page order, Torres noted that "the supervising probation officer reports that Mr. Taricani has fully complied with all conditions and the probation officer recommends that his petition be granted," The Providence Journal reported. The order also said that special prosecutor Mark DeSisto did not object to Taricani's early release, the paper reported. http://www.rcfp.org/news/2005/0412-con-televi.html