Post-Gazette Editorial – 7/25/05

This page was last updated on July 25, 2005.

Raise a shield / Reporter’s fate points to an irony and a need; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; July 25, 2005.

This is a follow-up editorial to “Dump Rove.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“New York Times reporter Judith Miller sits in jail today because of a story she did not write. She has no choice -- she promised confidentiality to a source, which is often the price that officials demand to tell what they know. She knows that if she betrays her source, others may be too frightened to speak to her or her newspaper.”

[RWC] Contrary to what the PG would like us to believe, Ms. Miller isn’t in jail “because of a story she did not write.” Ms. Miller is in jail because she refuses to follow a Supreme Court ruling that she disclose her source (and I believe their conversation).

Here’s something the editorial fails to note. According to all reports in the press, Ms. Miller’s source signed a waiver giving Ms. Miller the OK to identify her/him. Why does Ms. Miller continue to refuse a court order? She says she believes the special prosecutor may have coerced the source to sign the waiver. Does that “defense” make sense if Karl Rove is the source she’s protecting?

This is only speculation on my part, but I believe Karl Rove is not the source Ms. Miller is “protecting.” I suspect Ms. Miller’s real motivation is identification of her source and/or their conversation would serve to embarrass Ms. Miller and/or The New York Times. Here’s another hunch; the special prosecutor already knows the ID of the mystery source and the contents of the conversation(s) but has no evidence admissible in court. Again, this is only speculation and I could be way off base.

“Meanwhile, Karl Rove, who is known to have spoken to Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper and columnist Robert Novak in a case involving the possible illegal identification of a CIA agent, is free to go about his business in the White House. The cruel and absurd irony of this situation is hard to ignore.”

[RWC] What’s hard to ignore is the PG partisanship. By all accounts, even those in The New York Times, Mr. Rove has cooperated fully with the special prosecutor’s investigation. We’re also told the special prosecutor does not consider Mr. Rove a target of the investigation. Assuming these reports are reasonably accurate, why should Mr. Rove not be “free to go about his business in the White House?”

Regarding “the possible illegal identification of a CIA agent,” 36 of the PG’s fellow news organizations (I suspect the PG is a member of at least one of these groups.) argued before the Supreme Court that currently known evidence doesn’t support the allegation of an illegal act. There’s more detail on this point in my critique of “Dump Rove.”

“But this editorial isn’t intended to argue that case once again, but merely use it as an illustration of the crying need for a federal shield law that would protect journalists who must sometimes use confidential sources. While Ms. Miller is now in the news, more than two dozen reporters in the past year have been subpoenaed or questioned about confidential sources in federal cases, according to the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

“This isn’t just a reporter’s problem or special pleading by the media. If Americans want to find out what the government is up to, they are not served by a system that permits making the job of reporters infinitely harder. Politicians and official spokesmen are usually happy to give their rosy picture of reality, but the real story often requires leakers and whistle-blowers to describe. That is an unfortunate fact of life.”

[RWC] “This isn’t just a reporter’s problem or special pleading by the media?” Yes, it is. I’m tired of anonymous sources.

“Some 31 states -- including Pennsylvania -- have recognized the value of protecting reporters and their sources by putting in place shield laws, and 17 others have recognized a reporter’s privilege as a result of judicial decisions. Congress is being asked again to pass a federal shield law. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 340, the Free Flow of Information Act.

“The bill would allow testimony to be compelled from a journalist in civil and criminal cases only when there is clear and convincing evidence that the party seeking information has exhausted non-media sources and the testimony sought is essential to the investigation of the case.

“The proposed legislation does provide an absolute protection for confidential sources but its sponsors added an exemption in cases in which ‘disclosure of the identity of such a source is necessary to prevent imminent and actual harm to national security.’

“But this change was not noted in prepared testimony sent to the committee by Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey. He argued the bill was bad public policy because it would impede the government’s ability to fight terrorism.

“Playing on fears of terrorism is a feeble excuse to oppose this bill. Nobody seriously argues that the wheels of justice are fatally compromised because prosecutors can’t generally question lawyers about privileged conversations with their clients or about what patients say to their doctors or about what penitents confess to their priests. Journalists and their sources need the law on their side, too.”

[RWC] After taking an initial shot at Karl Rove, this editorial is about pleading for special treatment of so-called “reporters.”

What the editorial doesn’t touch on is the definition of a “reporter” and “non-media” sources. Would the PG’s law protect non-traditional reporters, like bloggers? I suspect I know the answer.