Protest ensures Judy Miller will not be receiving "First Amendment Award"

[BurtWorm]

Some journalists get it! :thumbsup:


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000981247


Journalism Group Argues Over Giving Award To Judith Miller

By Joe Strupp

Published: July 19, 2005 1:35 PM ET

...


The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), a 50-year-old group of some 1,100 non-fiction independent writers, had proposed giving Miller its "Conscience in the Media" award earlier this week. The group's nine-member First Amendment Committee voted on Monday to recommend that the award be given, a recommendation that the group's full board of directors will consider on July 28. But the recommendation was far from universal, with the committee voting 5-4 in favor of the prize, and many members protesting afterward.

The proposed award has already promped at least one member of the First Amendment Committee to quit the panel. Anita Bartholomew, a freelance journalist who has contributed to Reader's Digest, among others, told E&P she would rather leave the committee than take part in giving Miller an award.

"The First Amendment is designed to prevent government interference with a free press. Miller, by shielding a government official or officials who attempted to use the press to retaliate against a whistleblower, and scare off other would-be whistleblowers, has allied herself with government interference with, and censorship of, whistleblowers," Bartholomew wrote in a resignation letter provided to E&P. "When your source IS the government, and the government is attempting to use you to target a whistleblower, the notion of shielding a source must be reconsidered. To apply standard practices regarding sources to hiding wrongdoing at the highest levels of government perverts the intent of the First Amendment.

"I pointed this out, as did other committee members. All of us were ignored," the letter continued.

[Just Me]

1. Yeah,...they do "get it"!!! Some are independent and "thinking",...

,...enough that they refuse to be manipulated by RW exploitation.

[glitch]

2. Anita Barholomew gets it. Glad to see some journalists do. Wish there were

more. Actually I think more are starting to as they move past their initial knee-jerk superficial analysis of this issue as it applies to this particular situation.

[BurtWorm]

3. Joe Consason has a good column on Miller in the NY Observer

He gets it, of course.

http://www.observer.com/opinions_conason.asp

...

What did protect journalists’ sources from untoward prying by the federal authorities, until now, was an informal privilege recognized by the government. By custom, if not by law, federal prosecutors were discouraged from issuing subpoenas to journalists and news organizations. A prosecutor who wanted to haul in a reporter and rifle through her notebooks had to convince his supervisors in Washington that such drastic steps were truly necessary.

Now Ms. Miller may be in danger of indictment for criminal contempt, which would take her bad case across another ominous threshold. Still she insists that she must honor her commitment of confidentiality. To answer the subpoena would undermine the capacity of all journalists to do their jobs, she warns. But source privilege was never intended to protect powerful officials using the media to abuse their power and commit crimes.

It is possible to imagine a case in which the federal government would file an overreaching subpoena, the courts would uphold that mistake, and the resisting journalist would have no honorable choice but to go to prison. It could occur with or without a shield law, which is certain to include exceptions. To commit civil disobedience and flout the rule of law in defense of a higher principle, however, requires a very strict moral standard.

Or as the poet once sang, “To live outside the law, you must be honest.” Unfortunately, the martyr of the moment doesn’t inspire that kind of confidence.

[glitch]

4. He does he does.

I want him to have his own show on AAR, where he does serious in-depth interviews and his commentary. Wouldn't that be so great?

[BurtWorm]

5. That would indeed.

He'd be good on the tube as well.

[Just Me]

6. Kickin' for the real journalists!!!

:7

[BurtWorm]

7. rekicking.