How do we feel about the Chron guys now?

Stay away from Maggie, you pompous windbag.

 

Maybe they were all on the sidelines, shouting "Go get'em Ragu!" Then again, maybe they were trampling women and children on the way off the sinking ship.

Seriously, Balco is no longer Exhibit A for journalists in the battle for a federal shield law and the reporters are off the hook, legally. I'd sure like to hear the Chronicle's rationale someday, though, and I think you could build a j-school class around the sourcing issues.

 

Interesting new article published today on the subject of our discussion is below.

Reporters should demand more of their anonymous
sources

Journalists are granting confidentiality too easily,
hurting their profession.
By Dante Chinni

The Christian Science Monitor
March 12, 2007

WASHINGTON - The past few weeks have not been good
ones for journalists. On two coasts and in two trials
the issue of anonymous sourcing and off-the-record
conversations has come to the fore – and in both cases
questions have been raised about reporters' methods.

The trial of former White House aide I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby ended last week in guilty verdicts on
four of five counts of lying about his role in leaking
the identity of former undercover CIA operative
Valerie Plame. But the story behind the story was the
line of journalists – some of them household names –
who were called before the jury to testify about
confidential conversations they had with sources.

The judge said that "waivers" their sources had signed
(under pressure from the prosecution) essentially
voided the confidentiality agreements they had
reached. In most cases, journalists then went back to
get explicit OKs from their sources before testifying.


Out in California, the case about distribution of
steroids to star athletes by the Bay Area Laboratory
Cooperative (BALCO) took an odd turn recently. Two
journalists who'd reported on the BALCO scandal in
2004 faced jail time for refusing to say how they
acquired the grand jury testimony of pro-baseball
players admitting to steroid use. It turns out that
they got their information from ... the defense team.
A few weeks ago, defense lawyer Troy Ellerman
confessed that he had leaked the information in hopes
of getting a mistrial declared for his clients.

The reporters were eventually spared the threat of
prison when the defense lawyer acknowledged that he
was the source of the leak.

These are two different cases with two different
outcomes. In the Libby case, the journalists all
eventually talked. In the BALCO case, reporters were
prepared to go to jail to protect a source who, in
their minds, had given them information of overriding
public interest about steroid use in baseball.

But to many in the public, the cases are linked by one
question whose answer may be more black and white than
it once seemed: Should journalists be allowed to be
"above the law" and not obey when ordered to testify
in court?

That sentiment points out the bigger problem that
probably everyone can agree on. Journalists
increasingly grant confidentiality and anonymity the
way many Americans run up credit card charges – too
easily. As a result, the notion of anonymous sourcing
has spread from reluctant whistle-blowers and highly
sensitive sources to virtually anyone. Even Capitol
Hill press secretaries – paid for by taxpayer money –
are now routinely anonymous, and all they are trying
to do is float stories to make their bosses look good.


Most journalists will tell you that sources now often
ask for anonymity before "revealing" information that
is readily obtainable elsewhere. And those actions
have led to a more cavalier dispensing of such
agreements.

Still, source anonymity is not going to just go away.
It is an established part of journalism, and don't
forget that it has yielded more than a few reporting
triumphs – Watergate, of course, being the most
memorable.

So what, if anything, can be done?

There's no easy answer. Giving a source the blanket of
confidentiality will always remain a judgment call. It
may be time, however, for journalists to start making
that judgment more carefully. While there is sometimes
a lot to be gained in granting a source
confidentiality, there may also be a lot risked.

To prevent sources from gaming the system, journalists
may need to put a few provisos on that guarantee. It
may be time to say "I'll grant you anonymity and hold
to the deal, provided you are straight with me and
don't legally hang me out to dry."

That kind of statement would probably raise a lot of
questions and set off a conversation between the
reporter and his sources hashing out exactly what each
side is thinking. And that kind of discussion is not a
bad thing.

Will that kind of talk scare some sources off?
Probably, but many are likely to be the sources
journalists want to avoid anyway.

After all, everyone loves a scoop, but the stakes are
higher than just the risk of possibly going to prison
to protect sources. If journalists don't treat
confidentiality seriously, then they may wind up
facing just two options: (1) Come forward and reveal
an anonymous source and risk being labeled a chiseller
or (2) honor the confidentiality agreement and accept
that they've been used.

In a profession that thrives on reputation, those are
pretty poor choices.

• Dante Chinni, a senior associate at the Project of
Excellence in Journalism, writes a twice-monthly
column on media issues.

 

Creamora, did all 70 of your posts come on this thread?

 

Dante Chinni preserves his 5,000-column streak of mentioning Watergate. It's his St. Crispin's Day.

 

No, only 68 of them.
His second, on Feb. 28, dealt with BALCO, though.
His first, that same day, may have been the most instructive on his thinking. It asked what's the big deal about performance-enhancing drugs, we live in a performance-enhancing society.

 

This is the point I've raised throughout the thread. Others have said, it's too difficult and all of the sources will go away. But, I'd also agree with the writer's earlier point that there's too much anonymity being granted anyway. If there are a few less anonymous sources in the news and higher standards in using them journalists and the public will be better served.

 

And gentlemen in England now a'bed
shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here.
And hold their manhoods cheap
(Sorry, Bubbler)
whilst any speaks that fought with us,
upon St. Crispin's Day.

I think of Ragu on this thread when I hear that.

 

Minus about five hundred ninety-seven....

 

Chinni most certainly questioned the sourcing, which is why he used the Chronicle's Balco coverage as an example in his story in the first place:

Out in California, the case about distribution of steroids to star athletes by the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) took an odd turn recently. Two journalists who'd reported on the BALCO scandal in 2004 faced jail time for refusing to say how they acquired the grand jury testimony of pro-baseball players admitting to steroid use. It turns out that they got their information from ... the defense team. A few weeks ago, defense lawyer Troy Ellerman confessed that he had leaked the information in hopes of getting a mistrial declared for his clients. ...

To prevent sources from gaming the system, journalists may need to put a few provisos on that guarantee. It may be time to say "I'll grant you anonymity and hold to the deal, provided you are straight with me and don't legally hang me out to dry."

Which was why I asked earlier in the thread whether you thought the Balco reporters really believed Ellerman just wanted to expose the athletes for altruistic reasons (which I think would be more than a little naive) or whether they decided not to ask the question for reasons of expedience. You seemed to fall back on the idea that it shouldn't be reporters' job to examine the motives of would-be sources (they got truthful information, right?) but my position is that suspending a healthy degree of skepticism can get reporters into sticky ethical situations. Like this one.