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July 10, 2005

Hooray for Judith Miller, II

After my last post on the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a friend connected with me by email and took issue with my opposition to shield laws. I secured permission to post the missive below. It’s followed by my response:

MY FRIEND: Your blog on Judith Miller made me worry that you’ve gotten too far away from the job that launched you way back when.

I share your admiration of Miller’s willingness to do to jail. But why would you be opposed to shield laws? Yes, anonymous sourcing is sometimes abused by lazy reporters. So should be cancel the First Amendment cause it also protects The National Enquirer?

I doubt a judge would have sent a lawyer or doctor or priest or psychiatrist to jail for refusing to violate a confidence. Why a journalist who is just doing her job? Whither the First Amendment if people come to believe that reporters can’t or won’t protect their identity — and hence their livelihood or even their life?

Perhaps next time these people will just decide to keep mum about the corruption they see in government or in the corporation or in the labor union. Wouldn’t it be a better country if we didn’t HAVE to watch Judith Miller leave her family and go to jail for something hopefully I or you would or would have done?

MY RESPONSE: You make some good points, and nothing about the issue of confidentiality and shield laws is cut and dried.

I’ve held the same position on shield laws since I was in college and the state legislature was debating it in the wake of Watergate. Here’s my rationale:

Journalists are citizens just like anyone else. No special rights and no special responsibilities. No special protections. Why?

Because then you have define what a journalist is. Am I a journalist as author of keneudy.com? If keneudy.com uncovered corruption in City Hall, based on an anonymous source, should I have a shield?

What about Matt Drudge?

Who is defined as a journalist? Only those who work for a newspaper or TV station?

Judith Miller will ENCOURAGE whistleblowers to keep whistling by demonstrating her convictions and taking her secrets to jail. Matt Cooper will not. Those unsung heroes of conscience, the anonymous sources, will continue to find a way to drop the dime on corruption.

But now let’s go to another facet of this story. Should Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald have gone after the two reporters? I don’t know what he knows.

But as a former reporter who once was subpoenaed by a U.S. Attorney, I can tell you I believe Fitzgerald is politically inspired. When prosecutors have to rely on mostly hearsay testimony of journalists, you can rest assured that their cases are shaky at best.

Posted Jul 10 2005 @ 11:45 AM

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Comments

Posted by: James , Jul 14 2005 @ 07:39 PM