I was laboring under the apaprently false impression that journalists could count on a certain amount of protection when it came to being forced to reveal their sources, a la Watergate. Since I was but a wee lad during the early 70s, my knowledge of that scandal may be lacking a bit. But if ever (from the POV of the Nixon administration, anyway) there was a need to throw somebody into the Big House for withholding sources, Woodward & Bernstein should have been at the top of the list.
There was a policy? Who’s policy was it? Isn’t this a bit like saying “I have a policy against people smoking in my house, except when I don’t have that policy and then it’s OK.” In other words, “This is our policy, except when it’s not”.
What makes this case so sensitive that a would-be journalist needs to be jailed secretly? Please give me a reason why this should not make me a little queasy.
Yep, it’s a policy. Reporter/source privilege does not exist in the common law, and is not covered by the First Amendment. The 1st guarantees the press the right to investigate and publish, not hide information relevant to a criminal investigation. The fact that it is a policy is demonstrated that several states (but not Texas, as noted in the article you linked) have reporter shield laws, which creates a privilege. If reporter/source privilege was constitutional or common-law, shield laws would be unnecessary.
Nixon never would have had Woodward and Bernstein tossed into the clink for refusing to identify Deep Throat or their other sources. The idea of getting the identity of sources is to aid in the investigation, and Nixon wanted the investigation to go nowhere.
As for the secrecy aspect, damn skippy it’s scary. There can be reasons for sealing the record, but refusing to identify the name of the judge?!! WTF!
I have to agree with SuaSponte on this one. What concerns me is not the contempt of court charge. There are probably a half a dozen reporters in jail on charges at any point in time. All right that is an exageration but protection of a source is a limit right at best even where thier are source shield laws. One the conclusions my profesors hammered into us when I was in school was, if you are going to try to hide behind these laws make sure you know exactly what they say, or even if they exist in the local area. Second any reporter who decides to withold information should be prepared to spend some time in jail for contempt. So none of this is surprising or in my opinion disturbing. Source shielding should never be a an absolute right anyway.
However the idea that this was done as secretly as it was is very disturbing. I hope the reporter or his news agency has good representation, they may need it.
Somehow the press has the reputation of white knights in these cases. But if a cop used some of their subterfuges to get inoformation out of the unwary, they would be vilified.
I have not heard of any “subterfuges” being used in this case.
The reporter in this instance previously cooperated with state authorities, then was hit later by the feds with a demand to turn over everything she had related to the murder case, including all copies, accounting for several years of work, in a secret hearing. I doubt the Justice Department would have tried this tactic with a journalist representing a network or major newspaper, but apparently felt a free-lancer made a vulnerable target.
The way this happened spells “abuse of power” to me. And until they pull some justifications out from behind the veil of secrecy, they’ll catch deserved hell.
The most repulsive response to criticism in this case was in Friday’s USA Today, where some jackass twit from the Reagan Administration was defending the current Justice Department, likening the writer under siege to Pres. Nixon in the Watergate affair. This woman was not elected to serve a public trust. She interviewed an alleged criminal in jail, an opportunity the feds had many times over. Is it possible that their failure to crack the case has them looking for a scapegoat?
This has always been confusing to me. A catch-22 situation if ever there was one.
The constitution guarantees the press’ right to publish, but without source protection there would be nothing to report. Or am I missing something.
Reporter-source relationship should be treated no differently than attorney-client, IMO.
Peace,
mangeorge
In an ideal world, that would be a good idea-unfortunately, then, you run the risk of people making all sorts of unsubstantiated claims-think of the potential harm to the SDMB, if all of a sudden people could make arguments in this forum here without being call upon to offer up their sources?
Yes, but armed with a magic wand that vanquishes journalists into the salt mines, you think it might have been a useful tool, if for no other reason than to stick a couple of trouble making reporters into the hoosgow:
Nixon Aides: Please reveal your sources.
W&B: Get bent.
Aides: Send them to jail!
Is “being called upon to” the same thing as “being thrown in jail for”?
I think mangeorge has hit the nail on the head for me. It was that uneasy catch-22 feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, which is making me feel so uncomfortable about this.
Sure, Guinastasia, but the news media is different. It’s up to the publisher to verify and substantiate the reporters sources.
Many crimes (Watergate, et al) would never come to light if it weren’t for this protection. Sometimes, for whatever reason, someone involved in or aware of a wrongdoing decides to make it public. They should be allowed to hide behind the First, otherwise they’ll probably remain silent. There are other avenues to catch these informers if they were principals in the crime.
If you try something underhanded on the SDMB you’ll either be shot down, ignored, or the moderators will delete your sorry butt. But nobody goes to jail.
Peace,
mangeorge
These days, which newspapers would go in for spending time & money on stories they’re not sure are going to pan out? It may also be simply that scandal-prone organizations like governments have learned lessons from Watergate, et. al. and won’t be so easily “investigated”.
I don’t think journalism has the resources any more. Suppose Joe Reporter wants to get the breaking story on the next missing intern case. If a team of reporters was paid to dig through every congressman’s trash cans to find out who is having an affair, we’d just end up with a lot more tabloid news. Especially if it’s a really sensational tidbit- the hotter the tidbit, the quicker is has to get to print or to air.
I agree with The Ryan about the significance of protecting sources. And besides, I think the point of freedom of the press should be about freedom from restrictions aimed specifically at the press - not about exempting the press from standard laws so as to help them out as much as possible. I think it would probably help the press get a lot of good stories if they were exempt from laws against robbery, and breaking and entering. Who wants to go along with this?
How can a reporter-source relationship be considered priveledged? That’s crazy. Anonymity of sources may be useful, but so is prosecuting criminals. For crying out loud, if everything I say to a journalist is priveledged, then how could they publish it?
And anyway, the identity of the source would have to be disclosed in order for the legal system to protect it. And the whole point of source privledge is that no one knows who the source is.
No. Jounalists can promise to keep things secret, but they have the same reponsibility to testify in court as the rest of us do. If they have information about the commision of a crime, and make that information public, then they should be subpoened to give that information in court.
There is nothing in the first amendment that says that reporters have the legal right to keep secrets. I agree that reporters can promise anonymity to their sources if that is the only way to get them to talk. But they have the same status as anyone else. If I talked to John Gotti and promised him that I wouldn’t tell anyone about the crimes he commited, should I be immune from subpoena simply because I am a reporter? No.
So how about these guys? http://www.wetip.com/wetip/index.htm
Does being a nice, rosy-cheeked, ultra-conservative organization somehow give them the right to more protection than the ‘liberal’ (yea, right) media?
If I weren’t so lazy, I’d cite some wrongdoings that have come to light as a direct result of the supposed anonymity of the tipster. Even some since Watergate.
My point is that most of the whistle-blowers are ‘small potato’ characters in these crimes, or victims, and that their tips are often all that bring attention to bear on the crime.
Peace,
mangeorge
Of course many crimes have come to light because people were able to report them anonymously. And of course many reporters have published stories that would be impossible without anonymous sources, and of course anonymous sources are sometimes neccesary.
That doesn’t mean that they should be legally protected. There are secrets that I promised to keep that I could be compelled to reveal in a court of law. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t have made those promises, or that I should reveal the secrets if compelled too. It just means that I have no legal RIGHT to keep them secret. So if journalist s feel strongly enough about it, then they can take their contempt of court citation as a badge of honor. But you are not allowed to obstruct justice simply because you are a journalist.
On the contrary ** The Ryan **it’s incredibly important. “Crucial” is not too strong a word, by any stretch.
Even though I’m fairly young-ish and quit reporting seven years ago, I was trained in the Old School.
If people, particularly people working in government agencies at any level, know they can give you tips and information and that you will under no circumstances reveal them if you get heat for printing what they told you, you will get much better information and your publication can actually be of service to the readership.
Without that level of trust between reporters and sources, good information does not get passed along, and the readership’s ignorance of important issues has no ability to be overcome.
That being said, I referred to myself as Old School, which implies two sets of complimentary rules. The first set is that under no circumstances is a confidential source to be revealed to anyone except your editor. As a result, confidentiality is not to be entered into lightly, and the degree of confidentiality must established at the outset. Those degrees are Background (no names or direct quotes), Deep Background (no direct quotes and no “identifiers” - “A Justice Department Official” etc.) and Off the Record (the information provided cannot be used in the story and is offered solely to give the reporter a better understanding of the situation.)
The second set of rules is one that is frequently overlooked in modern reporting, which is one of the many reasons I left the profession: All information from a confidential source must be verified and confirmed by other sources. Traditionally, this means getting the same information from at least two other sources, with hopes that at least one of them will agree to be quoted, or from documents. A good source will point you toward the documents you need to corroborate his or her information if they exist.
As you can see, though, if you’re doing anything more important than spot news, confidential sources are crucial. Without them, the ability to report on The Events that Shape Your World ™ is seriously undermined, and the press’ highest merit (the one that entitled it to Constitutional protection in the first place - informing the populace about the deeds and misdeeds of its leaders) is reduced to the point of irrelevance and, possibly, nonexistence.
If I, as a reporter, were subpoenaed to testify against a source or to reveal that source for investigative purposes, I would have a duty to a higher principle to protect that source. Yes, protecting that source is more important than the pursuit of legal redress (which is not necessarily “justice”) in a particular case. I could absolutely loathe the individual I’m protecting, but if I were to reveal his or her identity I would undermine the very fabric of the free press and the entitlements of an informed populace, which are far more important to far more people than the prosecution of a single case. Doing so would create a precedent that could never be undone.
Lemur Here’s an example: If I interviewed John Gotti off the record and he, in order to help me understand how the Gambino family and similar organizations bribed law enforcement officials to turn a blind eye to their operations, confessed to crimes he had committed or ordered as part of that organization, I would have a responsibility to keep my mouth shut and never reveal what he said. Would I hate it? Yes. Would I feel like a world class heel? Yes? Does my role as a watchdog against government abuses and an informer of the public require it * whether what I’m doing violates a specific law or impedes a specific investigation or not *? Without question.
It is exactly that role that led to the establishment of “shield laws” in so many jurisdictions, and it is exactly that role that has blocked their adoption in others. By taking away (or never acknowledging) a reporter’s right to be immune from subpoenas regarding confidential sources, those people committing abuse of power have one fewer set of checks in place against them, and that is a far greater injury to society than the failure to prosecute one case.
Thanks, FallenAngel. I was hoping someone (more eloquent than I) who know’s what they’re talking about would step in.
Without an “informed public” we got nothing. And I think it’s worth it to suffer the abuses of the few reporters who don’t share the integrity of folks like FallenAngel.
Peace,
mangeorge
Are you saying that without confidentiality, absolutely no relevant information about the actions of our leaders would be reported? I don’t think that anonymity is necessary for someone to share information (look at all the quotes that are attributed to people), nor is confidentiality to anonymity.