Important...Please read if you're a journalist...

I'm just asking why we're getting our knickers in a stitch over a case in which everyone - the reporters, the prosecutors, the publisher, the judge - knew exactly what was going to happen the second the material was published. It's almost seems as if we're using the occasion to take ourselves seriously for a change, rather than doing so as a matter of course.

We're journalists. We protect sources. We go to jail sometimes to do so.

What's so special about this?

 

And the bottom line is, they had the personal choice whether to do jail time or not. They chose the former.

If you agree and would do the same, that's fine. I just don't want anybody to act like they were yanked out of their homes under the cloak of darkness.

You have your job, and then you have your life. For now, they chose to sacrifice their life for their job. No more, no less.

 

They're being held in contempt of court for not revealing their source in the course of an ongoing investigation. That's their choice. The court can and often does hold reporters in contempt, and sentence them to jail time, for withholding information like this. It's the law IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY.

Absent a specific shield law, freedom of the press has never excluded us from a contempt citation in the course of an ongoing investigation. Again, where was your indignation when Judy Miller went to jail?

As to the foreign writers I mentioned, they have no choice in their imprisonment. They're simply rounded up and thrown in a hole for having ideas. I bring it up only to put in perspective the relative scale of injustice being discussed here.

And if you think a four-month turn in a federal minimum-security facility is anything like eight or ten years of routine torture in Tehran, then you're just being purposely obtuse.

 

jgmac,

under your line of thinking, we'd pretty much never stand up for anything because we can always point to a worse injustice.... i'm standing up because this involves sports and because i want these guys to know that we're in support of them. and because i could see myself getting in the same sort of jam these guys are in and i'd want other sportswriters to support me. i don't fight every fight. i fight the ones i feel like fighting. this one strikes me as a fight worth fighting. i really don't get your line of thinking. it comes off as, "well, you guys are idiots and have no clue about the real atrocities journalists face around the world. let me tell you what i'm involved in."

that may not have been your intent, but that's how it comes off, jgmac. i have respect for ya. but i just don't get your take on this at all. i don't agree with tom petty on much of anything. but this place is sportsjournalists.com and i can't figure out why you'd take a dump on supporting a couple of reporters who might go to jail for breaking a sports story.

 

because going to jail for doing your job well is bullshit, that and this IS a sports journalist board.

hey shit man, i respect what you do with PEN and all, i really, really do and i'm interested in knowing how i can lend a hand. but you are where you are when you post your messages at SportsJournalists.com. knowing your audience is fairly vital.

 

right back at ya whitlock, right back at ya.

i'd hope your obvious point is taken with more than a grain of salt.

 

Hey, I for one think it's a noble thing for Mr. Whitlock, Mr. Telander and others to show up and lend their support. Just understand that there are also people who believe that if you break the law -- agree with the law or not -- you face the consequences. THEY MADE THAT CHOICE.

 

jgmac,

why don't you put out a memo and let us know what's worthy of protest and what's not? that would save us all a lot of time and trouble.

 

Please reread the post, JW. I never questioned the support. I question the protest.

And I honor these guys for doing their jobs. But going to jail for protecting a source is part of the job sometimes.

And I'm asking where the indignation was when Judy Miller went off to jail for the same thing.

And read my last post if you really don't understand the point of comparison between the men from the Chronicle and folks who are abducted and imprisoned by the mullahs for nothing more than holding a contrary thought.

The Chronicle guys chose this. It was their duty to do so, but they chose it.

 

i've got the notes from jgmac's meeting with martin luther king jr. just before the march on washington.

"martin, what the hell you bitching about? have you seen what black folks are putting up with in south africa? and why are you complaining about this church getting bombed? i don't remember you saying much about what hitler was doing over in germany."

 

jgmacg ... I was afraid it would come to this, given the antagonist. Just wish him a safe trip.

 

JW -

Before this reaches some point of no return, beyond which a return to civility is impossible, I'll ask that you reread my posts again, slowly.

Have fun in Washington.