Thursday, June 30, 2005
Time Marches On
Time Magazine will turn over Matthew Cooper's notes on his Valerie Plame story. Yowza.
Back in The Day, there was a case in NJ of a reporter name Peter Bridge, jailed for about three weeks for keeping his mouth shut. (He'd reported that a local housing commissioner had told him she had been offered a bribe; he knew the name of the person who'd offered the bribe, but refused to reveal it.) At the time I was an absolutist regarding the importance of "shield laws" -- laws protecting reporters from prosecution for failing to reveal their sources for stories, particularly stories revealing government misbehavior. I still believe that at some level. But the times they are a'changing: in the Plame case, the failure by Cooper and Judith Miller to reveal their sources is abetting government misbehavior.
Which of course doesn't let Bottomfeeder Novak off the hook. According to the AP story:
(For a good review of shield-law cases, including the Plame incident, see this article in a recent issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. The First Amendment Center also covers the issue. A longer research paper, The Reporter's Privilege: Then and Now (114KB PDF), published in 2000 by Stephen Bates and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, offers still more.)
Back in The Day, there was a case in NJ of a reporter name Peter Bridge, jailed for about three weeks for keeping his mouth shut. (He'd reported that a local housing commissioner had told him she had been offered a bribe; he knew the name of the person who'd offered the bribe, but refused to reveal it.) At the time I was an absolutist regarding the importance of "shield laws" -- laws protecting reporters from prosecution for failing to reveal their sources for stories, particularly stories revealing government misbehavior. I still believe that at some level. But the times they are a'changing: in the Plame case, the failure by Cooper and Judith Miller to reveal their sources is abetting government misbehavior.
Which of course doesn't let Bottomfeeder Novak off the hook. According to the AP story:
Meanwhile, columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to identify CIA officer Valerie Plame in print, told CNN he "will reveal all" after the matter is resolved, adding that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists."All," huh? We'll remember that, Bob. Thanks for being so forthright -- to say nothing of prompt.
(For a good review of shield-law cases, including the Plame incident, see this article in a recent issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. The First Amendment Center also covers the issue. A longer research paper, The Reporter's Privilege: Then and Now (114KB PDF), published in 2000 by Stephen Bates and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, offers still more.)
Comments:
<< Home
I sure would like to know if Novak testified before the grand jury. I can't understand, since he's the one who broke the story, how he's escaped being held in contempt.
It would be a happy day, indeed, if those White House bottom-feeders who leaked the name are finally exposed. Of course the White House doesn't seem to care that it's already caused the deaths of over 1,700 American military and thousands of Iraqi citizens. What's one little CIA agent to them?
It would be a happy day, indeed, if those White House bottom-feeders who leaked the name are finally exposed. Of course the White House doesn't seem to care that it's already caused the deaths of over 1,700 American military and thousands of Iraqi citizens. What's one little CIA agent to them?
TLS: "one little CIA agent" -- right! Or for that matter, all the agents interconnected with her. The whole thing is disgusting. If Fitzgerald (appointed prosecutor when Ashcroft recused himself) doesn't find a smoking gun here, he ain't (I believe) much of a prosecutor.
Post a Comment
<< Home
