Conyers & Huffington on proposed "journalistic shield" laws

[paineinthearse]

http://www.conyersblog.us/

More on Judith Miller Controversy and Treasongate

Once again, my friend Arianna weighs in with some more colorful detail about rumors surrounding the Miller controversy. And, again, I have to say that I have no independent confirmation of the details. That said, Arianna does touch on an important public policy issue -- the current lobbying for a "journalistic shield" to protect reporters from revealing sources and thereby presumably avert other reporters from suffering the fate of Ms. Miller. The legislative proposals have a surface appeal to me. I have long been a purist when it comes to protecting the First Amendment and the rights of the press. However, I have been reluctant to support the proposals before Congress. Why?

I am unaware of any of the federal rules of evidence or common law that provides an absolute shield, with no exceptions, to anyone. There are limits to all sorts of privileges either by rule or by case law, including the right of one spouse to decline to testify against the other, or a priest to decline to testify against a penitent, or a doctor to decline to disclose conversations with a patient. Many of those exceptions are grounded in the reasoning that when the case at hand no longer is supportive of the privilege, the privilege should not apply.

What has been raised by Arianna need not be true for it to have value as a hypothetical. To me, the public policy rationale for the reporter's privilege is to protect the sources of that reporter who are exposing government wrongdoing or corruption. What if, however, the leak does not expose any such corruption, but constitutes the corruption itself? Should the journalistic shield apply in that instance?

More brazenly, what if the reporter is one of the leakers? Should that be shielded?

Blogged by JC on 07.31.05 @ 09:43 PM ET

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/the-judy-file_4933.html

Ever since I started blogging about Judy Miller's role in Plamegate (and in the selling of the war in Iraq), I've been showered with tips and tidbits about the jailed reporter, whom one e-mailer from Sag Harbor ("her summer hometown") archly referred to as "the amazing Ms. Miller, intrepid girl reporter."

And since I spent the weekend in the vicinity of her summer hometown, some of what I heard was delivered by people who know her well. Together all these pieces of information now comprise my newly labeled -- and ever-expanding -- Judy File.

A recurring theme in many of the conversations and e-mails is how Judy, to the dismay of many of her colleagues, never played by the same rules and standards as other reporters. One source e-mailed to give me some examples of this pattern: "In Feb 2003, Judy was in Salahuddin covering the Iraqi opposition conclave. Iraqi National Congress spokesperson Zaab Sethna told a reporter who was also there that Judy was staying with Chalabi's group in Salahuddin (the rest of the reporters had to stay 30 minutes away in crappy hotels in Irbil), and that the I.N.C. had provided her with a car and a translator (Did the New York Times reimburse them?). The I.N.C. offered another reporter the same, but he turned it down. Judy had just arrived in a bus convoy from Turkey, big footing C.J. Chivers, who was also there covering the story for the Times. While everyone else on the buses had to scramble for accommodations, she was staying in a luxurious villa loaned to the I.N.C. by the Kurdish Democratic Party...

"Two years earlier, she was on assignment in Paris for the Times and conducted her reporting out of the ambassador's personal residence, where she was staying. Felix Rohatyn, the ambassador at the time, was out of town, but it would be interesting to know whether the Times reimbursed U.S. taxpayers for the use of the embassy while she was there on assignment. What is certain is that the Paris bureau was buzzing about this at the time, as getting too close to sources or accepting hospitality -- accommodations, meals -- is a violation of the Times's ethical standards. The feeling was that somehow Judy was able to do whatever she wanted."

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