Telander's Note, a Column, and now SF Editor Bronstein Weighs In

The Times ran full-length stories on Miller's Iraq reporting, Maureen Dowd's column eviscerating her, the public editor's columns, Keller's mea culpa, and an I've-been-right-all-along piece by Miller herself.

 

Dave, I really don't understand why your position is getting so much resistance from journalists on this thread.

Please know -- most if not all my colleagues in television and print squarely support the Chron guys in every way. Even many of my non-journo friends and lawyer friends see this as the government overstepping. (The lawyers aren't surprised, however. They say the combo of overzealousness and laziness in the prosecutorial ranks happens everywhere...)

But my admiration for these Chron fellas is matched only by my concern for their physical and mental comfort, as well as that of their families. If I were in their shoes, I imagine I'd want this to end as soon as possible, and yet, the longer it drags out, the more it seems to their advantage. It could be a long process, and my sense is, many, many people support their position.

 

I meant as a rule, that's where corrections runs, in smaller proportion to how an error got played.

 

Luggie, just a point of order ... you're speaking for an awful lot of people there. Be sure about that statement.

When I discuss this with other journalists, I'm just as often met with the arguments from the other side.

 

Oh, I'm sure about it.

The more I participate in this forum, the more I see how much some of the opinions expressed here deviate from those in real life.

 

I think this would be the most likely exchange in real life about this case:

"Do you think Williams and Fainaru-Wada should give up their sources?"

"Huh?"

Not that it isn't an important issue, just sayin'

 

With the man on the street, yes, that would be the reaction. No doubt about.

 

Even though I think it's pretty clear Lugnuts was talking about fellow journalists.

As for a non-journalist, for what it's worth I asked my best friend the lawyer what he thought about the whole thing. Here's his verbatim response.

"Haven't been following it closely, but I almost always come down firmly
on the side of reporters. Baring an extraordinarily urgent matter of
national security I don't think a reporter should ever have to divulge
his or her sources. I think this is a key protection in the First
Amendment and would gladly work on any case that attempted to say
otherwise. Here, the court is jailing reporters for failing to reveal
sources about a low-level (and rather inconsequential) drug case. I
can't possibly imagine how the information they'd have would justify the
potential chilling effect it would have on the press and its sources.
Make the cops and the prosecutors do their job and find their own
information."

 

Good thing you had your tape recorder on there.

 

E-mail, shottie. E-mail. But I'm guessing you knew that.

 

A commentary on my old-mannedness that it didn't even enter my mind...

 

If you go back and read my post, I said my colleagues and friends, not man on the street.

But I think you'd be surprised at the number of people who have some awareness of the issue. They may not know the names, but they might know "the dudes who wrote the Bonds book."