Inordinate self-love, Augustine wrote, is the cause of every sin. This is where the New York Times finds itself today.
"This is a proud but awful moment," the newspaper says at the start of its editorial defending the contemptuous Judith Miller. They got the first part right. Their employee is putting her personal career strategy — her sources, and perhaps a future book deal — ahead of the security of the country by protecting a person who blew the cover of a CIA agent.
"She is surrendering her liberty in defense of a greater liberty,granted to a free press by the founding fathers so journalists can workon behalf of the public without fear of regulation or retaliation fromany branch of government."
How much Kool Aid have these people consumed? The founding fathers did not grant the press the right to operate without regulation. Libel laws, not to mention taxes, were well known at the time of the Revolution. No one, except perhaps journalists themselves, believes reporters work primarily in the public interest. Newspapers are businesses, not religious ministries.
"Responsible journalists recognize that press freedoms are notabsolute and must be exercised responsibly. This newspaper will not,for example, print the details of American troop movements in advanceof a battle, because publication would endanger lives and nationalsecurity. But these limits cannot be dictated by the whim of a branchof government, especially behind a screen of secrecy," the Times continues.
Responsibility, however, requires an acknowledgement of limits. These weasel words take as much as they give. The whim of the editors of the Times, we see, should trump those of our elected officials and judiciary.
Miller, her editors say, is comparable to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Why not throw in Jesus Christ for good measure. That would make the newspaper the Bible, which apparently is no more than its due.
The editors would do well to note the advice of Proverbs XVI:18: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
This and related threads here seem pretty conservative and reactionary. I admire her guts, whether or not the Times editors (who aren’t missing any rounds of golf by being in jail) puff up about her.Until he became POTUS and got the criticism, Jefferson wrote that a free press was more important than a government. Then he changed his mind. However, the point is not whether reporters have an absolute right or any right to withhold sources to protect the flow of information. To us lowly citizens, we might expect our law enforcers to become as good as reporters in discovering the truth and who is a criminal. To the degree to which a reporter can make the public aware of treason, corruption and other affronts to the commonwealth, he’s done his job.It’s hard to find a clichéd TV program or movie that shows reporters that does not portray them as egomaniacs who badger the widows grieving over their husband’s corpses. Yet (and in disclosure, I used to be a newspaper reporter), we all knew that we might get tossed in the can or roughed up by cops or threatened by bigshots. It was part of the job.I want the reporters for the papers and magazines I read to show guts. I want them to protect their sources so that others will tell them crucial information in the future. I want the government to do its own police work without hobbling the press. I want reporters who will go to jail for months if necessary to see that I get more than what police and political PR wants to feed me.That Times reporter may be a snot or she may not. That’s not what’s important. She has the guts to take her lumps.
This one is not about “guts” or “lumps.” Nor, sadly, is it about the press digging out “treason” or “corruption” – just the opposite. It’s about corrupt, treasonous government officials abusing the press, and the freedom of the press, to exact revenge on their enemies – and the press has played right into their hands. Why do you think Rove or Bolton or whoever the real source is chose Miller? Because he/she KNEW that Miller would never talk. And it’s working splendidly. I don’t think it’s “conservative” or “reactionary” to expect corruption in the highest levels of government to be exposed, and to expect citizens who have essential information about that corruption to provide it.
My view remains very different. For the reporter, this is willful civil disobedience. Whether one views a particular instance of such as hard-headed or noble or something else, we know the long history and proven value of making points this way — but only if you are willing to take the consequences.Nefarious, manipulative, traitorous Bush officials perform their dirty deeds not only with reporters. They use titular law-enforcement officers, other bureaucrats, foreign leaders and bloggers. Beating up on the press is a cheap shot. The bad guys are elsewhere. The public has to demand action, and loudly enough that the Executive branch can no longer condone or initiate.The reporter wants to remain the spark for such calls. She knows she doesn’t have any protection other than the (hardy har) honor of the investigators, cops and courts.I’ll continue to disagree on buckling under. The short-term gain is a long-term loss. The litmus test should be whether the investigators could find this information otherwise, in short by doing their jobs.
I just ran across today’s Globe business section with a column that covers the Miller issues, Jailed for doing a job. Steve Bailey admits the downsides, but cuts to what I see as the big issues.
Amen.Reporters are not above the law. They never have been. A witness to a crime can be called to testify. The only cases of confidentiality that hold up in court are doctor-patient, lawyer-client, spousal, and the confessional (one I’d like to see abolished…I mean, that’s only one religion that has the confessional, correct?). I don’t think I’m missing any. Journalist-source confidentiality is not a court-upheld right. And it shouldn’t be. Reporting on crime is what the press is supposed to do, not protect criminals.
Comment cross-posted on LawDork:A defender of an absolute privilege, Fool, spoke up for Chris Geidner, saying, “The attorney may not disclose the conversation or the substance of the conversation” unless a future crime/fraud type of exception applies. I wonder. There’s times when a lawyer “shall not” disclose, and times when they “may.” If a question of the lawyer’s competence came up in a later habeas or malpractice case, couldn’t the other exceptions allow the lawyer to introduce the client’s admission of guilt, either to prove the harmlessness of any error, or for other purposes?As NParks noted (see the thread at http://www.chrisgeidner.com/blog/archive/003524.html), there’s no protection here from universal application of the law: everyone’s got to go before a grand jury. There are 49 state shield laws, no federal common law shield law, and the Circuit Court expressly held that even if there were an applicable common law shield for reporters, the facts of the case would have overcome the protections of the shield. Isn’t that enough?I think the present investigation of a federal felony, possibly or arguably arising to treason (the disclosure, during wartime, of the identity of a top-secret operative under cover) means that the big guns of law enforcement come out, and first amendment defenses must be carefully drawn. Not eliminated, just placed in ways that we can live with.I don’t favor changing the scope of protections based on the importance of the case. But that cuts both ways; I have no problem with sending journalists to jail when they fail to obey the law as well all must do, lawyers and doctors and journalists alike. Doctors may go to jail to protect their patients’ confidentiality, I dunno, but I think many lawyers either fold or negotiate when subpoenaed.Re. the “save a life” exception for doctors (also from the comment thread at http://www.chrisgeidner.com/blog/archive/003524.html)- that’s common sense to me. Is it wrong? If a doctor knew the patient had a particular STD, or knew they had an allergy to a medication, and that fact revealed their commission of a past crime, and treatment was proceeding that would injure or kill the patient, wouldn’t they have to disclose, ethically speaking? Is silence to protect the secret ethical when the patient must die in that case? I can’t imagine a surgeon saying so, except in even more unusual circumstances.