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

Ragu -
Absent a federal shield law, the whole matter is an industry-ethics question. Absent a federal shield law, the court is within its rights to do what it's doing. The question is what exactly it is that we're arguing for? Not every anonymous source in the newspaper is a whistleblower. In fact, if you look through the paper, very few of them are. Most of them are people grinding axes anonymously. Most of the time, it's just silly. (I love the WH "sources" who demand anonymity for the purposes of praising their bosses.) In the context of a criminal prosecution, though, you come bumping up hard against someone's Sixth Amendment right to trial. Again, I am completely of two minds on this. I see, and respect, Telander's point. I'd like him to be a bit more precise about what he's defending, because I don't think he's defending what he thinks he is.

 

But, absent that law, which I would prefer, too, we have to deal with the ethics problem of being so promiscuous with our grants of anonymity. There is absolutely no way a reporter should grant anonymity to some for the purpose of becoming a transmission belt for unreconstructed slander, or to become a tool in bureaucratic infighting (the story IS the infighting, not who said what), or any one of a dozen trivial reasons for which people are regularly granted anonymity. Reporters should not willy-nily become part of the prosecution of felonies without explaining WHY the material is being leaked, which guarantees the leaks stop. We're not feathers in the breeze here. WHY something is being told to us is often more important than what's being told is.
Suppose, for example, and I am in no way asserting that this is the case, the reason that GJ stuff was being leaked in SF is because the prosecution's case is weaker than we have been led to believe? Isn't that a story? And, if it is, how do you report it if you've promiscuously promised anonymity to the people who are using your to shore up that case in the public mind?
I want a federal shield law, too. I'd also like a media -- and a governmemt -- that can be trusted not to conspire in its abuse.

 

For all the good you said there, FB, this is what concerns me. I am NOT going to stand and fight unless I fully understand and support the cause.

And as Luggie pointed out so succinctly, I must not fully understand the cause. So I shall not stand and fight.

(Addendum: If a demand is made of an individual by a judge, and the individual chooses not to respond to that demand ... guess what? He's BROKEN THE LAW. Nothing I said before changes.)

 

Hey, Whitlock, I thought only 5 percent of us were journalists (and none of the TV people). You sure you approve of us pretenders reading this thread?

 

Frankly, I'm blown away that you can consider yourself a journalist and have views that are so self-centered.

Who is to say that the Freedom of the Press trumps a person's right to due process?

This isn't the Pentagon Papers. Those testifying before the grand jury were doing so under the promise that their testimony would not be made public.

The government has every right...check that...every responsibility, to aggresively search for the source of the leak.

In hindsight, would Jason Giambi and company have been as forthcoming if they knew their testimony would be made public?

In hindsight, isn't the integrity of the grand jury process harmed if the government does not attempt to track down the leaker?

Get off your high horse and think rationally.

 

Just to clarify, I certainly empathize with the Chron guys, and if I were in their position, I certainly would have used the Grand Jury testimony.

But I don't think this is an injustice that merits a giant circle of sportswriters holding hands around the Washington Monument and singing "Kum by yah."

I know at my place, we have a policy where we will not go to jail to protect a source. I'm not saying that's what I personally believe, but this isn't Howard Fineman getting imprisoned for criticizing the Bush Administration.

 

That was the mental picture I couldn't put into words. Thank you.

 

So let's say this is your story. How would this work? You'd use the testimony--which would be given to you under conditions of anonymity--but then give up the source if asked by the court?

How could you promise anonymity in the first place, knowing you wouldn't actually keep the promise?

 

This is the policy at my place, from my understanding: before anything like Grand Jury testimony would be used, we would inform the source that we would do everything in our power to protect his or her identity. But if a court ordered us to reveal the source, we would.

EDIT: in hindsight, not sure if I answered your question. Pretty much, we would make sure we laid out to the source that, if push came to shove, we wouldn't go to jail to protect his identity, and we would make sure that we made it explicitly clear to the source before we used the grand jury testimony.

 

Reporters can have privilege when they agree to the same conditions that other professionals have in place:
• A license
• A standardized system of education
• Regular continuing education
• A professional board of oversight
• Losing the abilty to work in the field, if found guilty of trangressions.
Of the four professions - lawyers, doctors, clergy and military officers -- all are extended a certain privileges and all have a system of regulation and threat of expulsion. If it is a lawyer who leaked the testimony, than that lawyer could be disbarred and no longer be an attorney. That isn't the case for journalists, until then a journalist shouldn't have any more protection than a regular citizen. Because how do you define "journalist"?
Does a person with a blog, have the same level of protection as a reporter for the Post or the Times?

 

So going back to your earlier comment, about how this doesn't limit or stifle free speech....when the source says, 'hey, i can't risk that, see ya,' haven't you effectively been stifled or limited by your inability to promise protection?