Journalists in US face jail for refusing to reveal their sources

[emad]

Snip from The Independent
By David Usborne in New York
21 August 2004


The right of journalists in the United States to withhold the identity of their sources has come under unprecedented assault, with reporters from several of the country's most prestigious news organisations now under threat of jail and punitive fines from judges and the Justice Department.

The sudden onslaught, prompted by published stories that have since triggered investigations and civil lawsuits, is spreading alarm through the profession. Presently, the ability of reporters in this country to protect their sources is based somewhat flimsily on an interpretation of the US Constitution.

Nathan Siegel, a lawyer with the Associated Press news agency, said this week: "There seems to be more willingness on the part of the judiciary to limit press freedoms." The AP is among four news outlets under pressure in a case concerning Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear scientist accused of stealing secrets from the Los Alamos nuclear facility who was later largely cleared.

Mr Lee is suing to find out who leaked erroneous information about him during the investigation under the Clinton administration. Last week, a US District Court judge ordered reporters from AP, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and ABC to pay $500 (£275) a day in fines for refusing to reveal their sources. The fines have been suspended pending appeals. In another case, a federal judge held Matthew Cooper of Time magazine in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury who gave him the name of an undercover CIA agent. He remains free pending an appeal. The agent was Valerie Plame, wife of a former US ambassador, Joe Wilson. Her name surfaced after Mr Wilson accused Washington of wrongly asserting that Iraq sought to buy nuclear materials from Niger. Other journalists who have become ensnared in the Plame investigation include Bob Novak, the prominent Chicago columnist and CNN commentator, and Tim Russert, the political editor of NBC.
More:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=553673

Edit: In UK journos' rights virtually sacrosanct despite many attempts by ome Secretaries to change the law.

"Priviledged information" status originally brought in to protect witnesses and ensure fairness of reporting.

[Mokito]

1. Even though the U.S. isn't worth much anymore lately...

this still is a blatant attack on freedom of information, simply...on the truth.

Get ready to read "The Daily Patriot" all day, every day.

[NNN0LHI]

5. In case you missed it we have been reading...

..."The Daily Patriot" all day, every day, since 9/11.

Don

[ixion]

11. BushCo has distorted the word 'patriot' to mean mindless facist drone

which exactly the opposite of it's meaning.

Just more black is white logic from the neocons.

They are the ones who ought to be in jail, IMO.

[bahrbearian]

2. I guess Novalkula isn't a journalist

[Malva Zebrina]

3. I don't have much sympathy for them

they brought it upon themself. They abused their bully pulpits. They have not reported to the American people, the truth. They know and they knew it. They hold the people hostage to their whims and fancies by holding back that which they deemed harmful to their beloved Fuhrer.

I blame a good deal of the devastation wreaked upon this country by the fascist like Bush administration on their abuse and failure

[sadiesworld]

4. The media in collusion with government to commit crimes vs.

the media as a legitimate watchdog of government. It shouldn't take a legal genius to draw a distinction here.

[Supersedeas]

6. Unprecedented assault, sudden onslaught, more willingness???

No, no, and no.

Funny how none of these media types who are NOW oh-so sensitive about revealing confidential sources, were oh-so quiet when Ken Starr was subpoenaing media sources for information in that grand topic of National Security...remember...Whitewater.

Now, suddenly, with the threat of exposure of government sources who have been leaking information with the specific intent of "MISLEADING" the American public, now (ONLY NOW) do these Media types see a sudden onslaught, unprecedented assaults and more willingness of the Courts to limit First Amendment freedoms. POPPY-COCK!!!

Since 1972, the Courts have made it clear that the journalist privilege to protect confidential sources is qualified and limited. There was Branzburg (1972), Lewis v. US (1975), Farr v. Pitchess (1975), Reports Comm. v. American Tel. (1978), Univ. of PA v. EEOC (1990), Cohen v. Cowess Media (1991), US v. Cutles (1993), In Re Application of Subpoena to NBC, Inc. (1996), and of course In Re Grand Jury Subpoena of ABC,Inc. when Judge Susan Webber ordered ABC News Anchor Diane Sawyer and ABC to produce the full transcript and video tape of an interview with Susan McDougal pursuant to Ken Starr's subpoena in the Whitewater investigation. Just to mention a few.

Sound unprecedented and like a sudden unslaught to you? Good journalists and even not-so-good journalists who paid attention in their Media Law undergrad class are familiar with the limited nature of the privilege. If the recent UPROAR about the JUDICIARY'S perspective on this privilege sounds like it has more to with PARTISAN POLITICS than it has to do with Constitutional protection, maybe it is because 'sudden unslaught' is all about PARTISAN POLITICS.

"Objective" journalists raising a Constitutional Issue as a pretext for POLITICAL cover??? NO WAY!!!

But a point that I find sadly missing in the media's discussion of the Plame and Lee cases is the issue raised in a recent FAIR article. See:

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/plame-lee.html

<snip>

The motive and effect of government leaks are the critical questions, and courts can and should make a distinction between legitimate whistleblowing and illegitimate government attempts to use information as a weapon.....The First Amendment exists so that the press can be a check on government abuse of power, not a handmaiden to it.

<snip>

Take a gander at the entire article, it is well worth your time.

[sadiesworld]

7. Thanks for the info, Supersedeas

And welcome to DU! :hi:

[flordehinojos]

8. Does this mean that Bob Novak is under threa of going to jail?

GOOD!}( }( }( :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: HE DESERVES IT!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. Why don't I...

Feel sorry for these guys?

Oh...because they have nothing in the way of the journalistic quality of discernment.

Discernment: A fully functional and finely-tuned bullshit filter.

Someone want to explain "personal responsibility" to me again?

[MasonJar]

10. There should be some difference between withholding the

idenity of someone who helps expose wrongdoing and of someone who committed a felony for purposes of revenge. Except for the "prominent" Novack none of these journalists used the info, knowing that type of vitriol was not appropriate journalism. Only that weasel Novack jumped right on it.

[Kagemusha]

12. UK journalism sancrosanct!? In what world!?

Hello, have you actually read the history of the UK's Official Secrets Act? Someone got 2 years in hard time over there in the 60's or 70's for leaking a breakfast menu to the media. Both sides wanted to prove a point.

And I note this para:

"Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said: "I think we're setting up a real showdown here." She predicted that the journalists would not be "intimidated into revealing their confidential sources". She added. "The government is trying to keep more and more secrets, and journalists are working harder to uncover those secrets. Given the terrorism climate, all this has come to a head."

No, journalists are NOT working harder to uncover THOSE secrets. Journalists are working hard to uncover the secrets someone in government wants to illegally leak for partisan political gain. The secrets the government chooses to keep secret - who did the leaking - are secrets the press wants to keep concealed, so that other branches of government don't clamp down on this illegal, partisan and extremely injurious process.

[Green Lantern]

13. a couple of thoughts

First-if the sob who broke Plame's identity had the courage to step forward and confess...

Second-if there were other possible sources for the info the reporters might not be on the spot...

Third-if the reporters were not so hot to "scoop" on the issue, and put some thought into what they were dkoing-like a review of the law on such disclosures...

Fourth-if the reporters actually did their jobs instead of waiting with bated breath for the next WH press release-legit or otherwise...

Fifth-if they had checked perhaps with Wilson and Plame before releasing the info..

Sixth-where were the legal depts of the news orgs They sog everything else.

Ok - that's more than a couple, but no sympathy for the blurters, perp walks all around-reporters and leaker alike.

[Endangered Specie]

14. Be nice to see this happen to Bob Novak...

and the whole Plame thing.