How do we feel about the Chron guys now?

Cran, No. Have fun reading your tea leaves.

 

You always blame roid rage. But sometimes it's PMS.

 

Jay, please go back and read Kindred's posts. A lot of people have jumped to conclusions like what you just posted, and I am afraid that speculation (of fairly unlikely events) is congealing into "fact." There's not only no evidence of what you just posted, I'd suggest that given what we know about these particular reporters, the credibility they have built up should suggest to people that it's more likely that it didn't go down like that than it did. People are pointing fingers based on ridiculous speculation. It's unfair. For one thing, it was a 281-page motion that barely mentioned the thing everyone is harping on. Ellerman's motion was all-out assault on the Feds. The kind that EVERY defense attorney files and that never gets a dismissal. It barely mentioned prosecutorial leaks and either made no mention, or so little mention, of the grand jury leak that neither the Chronicle or Mercury News mentioned it in their reporting. We also don't know if the prosecution actually WAS leaking stuff to the reporters, so Ellerman could have actually been right (just because he broke the law with regard to a court order, doesn't mean everything he did was unethical). And lastly, we just don't know who all the sources for the reporters were, and what their dealings with those sources were like. Their info came from many places.

And your analogy is just wrong. These reporters haven't libeled anyone. Forget libel, there have been lots of people who have reason to prove their work untrue. Bonds and various athletes. Victor Conte and the BALCO bunch. No one has. Bonds sued them, and couldn't allege libel or defamation, which is telling. He tried a lawsuit on the merits of, "They were using leaked GJ testimony," and the lawsuit was dismissed.

No one is suggesting that reporters should be able to libel or defame someone and then hide behind source protection. If sources had caused Williams or F-W to get the story wrong, or more seriously to libel someone, do you think they would be standing behind those sources?

What about those two reporters makes people think they are anything but ethical and honorable? Jeez, look at the quality of their work (their book is better-sourced and documented than a woodward book) and their principled behavior throughout.

 

But that's my point. You're making a speculative assumption... What does "going to the well a second time" mean? What if EVERYTHING in Ellerman's motion--which you've apparently latched onto, including a ridiculously minor allegation in the motion--jibes with what they knew and when they knew it? You've assumed wrong doing of some sort that you no right to. What if the prosecution was leaking GJ testimony to the reporters? Is that really unlikely? What if others were too? They could have had a tent pitched in the well, and there'd be nothing wrong with it.

All the reporters have said is that they had anonymous sources. Nothing more, nothing less. Those sources could have included anyone, including the prosecution--in fact, those kinds of sources usually DO include the prosecution. Either way, you have no idea who those sources were. Honestly, you don't even know if what Ellerman pled to is even true.

Let's look at the things we DO know, though. They apparently got a major story right. And they've displayed principled behavior with regard to their sources. Given that, shouldn't they get some benefit of the doubt--they seem like ethical, principled reporters who did a good job on a complicated story? Why did you jump to the negative speculative assumption that they knew Ellerman was lying and they went back to him anyway, rather than saying, I want evidence of that before jumping to that conclusion? There isn't evidence of it. Yet, people have been talking about it like it's fact.

It's fair to question it. It's unfair to jump to the conclusions you have.

 

Piotr, Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. Maybe I am not being clear. I am saying we don't know HOW things went down. We can't. We don't know their sources or how they dealt with those sources.

My frustration is with the people who have jumped to point C already, over a dismissal motion that didn't hinge on the thing people have latched onto. Read through this thread! As I said, it's OK to have questions. It's wrong to make unfair accusations. Read some of creamora and Cranberry's posts about the "schemes." My point about what we do know, is that the things we know for sure show the reporters to have done things right, not wrong. That should buy them a little credibility. Questions should be questions when it comes to these guys, not indictments. Because chances are the truth is that they haven't done anything wrong.

 

Piotr, I respect the way you're going at this... But as I said, my guess (or conclusion as you put it) is based on what we do know about them--integrity, principled, documented their reporting scrupulously. That seems like the reasonable way to approach this. We KNOW them to have done things right on the things we really do know about. Yet, now people are making very speculative assumptions that they did something wrong, with regard to things that we can't know about. That not only is unfair, it defies the way people typically make reasoned judgments. When I said, "chances are," that wasn't a plea for a free pass or me jumping to a conclusion. It was a statement about them having earned some credibility that the "a ha!" brigade has not only denied them, but has taken the next step to indict them. It makes no sense to me.