Journalism Backlash...

It didn't take long in coming, the backlash from the troubles of Judith Miller and Matt Cooper.

There is a Chicago newspaper, the "Plain Dealer", whose editor Doug Clifton says they have decided not to publish two investigative pieces of "profound importance" because they are based on illegally leaked documents and the paper fears similar reprisals. The interesting thing is, they're apparently so concerned that the paper has not even given a hint as to the broad topic, there's really no way to know if this relates to Valerie Plame, the war, or perhaps something of a more local nature, which might be important only to those from the Chicago Area.

According to Clifton, both he and the reporters in question would be willing to go to jail over the piece, if it came to that, but the paper is not willing to go to the same lengths to keep the source anonymous, so they won't run the story. He originally mentioned the stories in a column on June 30th. In that column, he writes "As I write this, two stories of profound importance languish in our hands. The public would be well served to know them, but both are based on documents leaked to us by people who would face deep trouble for having leaked them. Publishing the stories would almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail. Because talking isn't an option and jail is too high a price to pay, these two stories will go untold for now. How many more are out there?"

Now, I don't know the paper in question, so I don't know what their reputation is. I do know that the New York Times ran the story (albeit on page 10).

The thing is, whether this paper is a good source of news and being honest about the “profound importance” or a cheap, sensationalistic rag pretending to have something it doesn't, this is still exactly what I fear about the Miller/Cooper issue. Someone has information they think is being covered up and wants to leak it to the public, but either the leaker or the leakee feels enough reason for concern that they opt to NOT release the information to the public.

Say what you will about leaked information. There are certainly times when it is not appropriate, and the correct channels should be followed. Nevertheless, there are also times when official channels may already have been compromised by the very thing that needs to get out. That was the situation with Deep Throat: Although many say he should have gone through channels, he'd already watched his boss at the FBI turn over the investigation of the case in question to the very people being investigated, there was every reason to believe that “channels” would result in guilty people going un-caught.

Like it or not, confidential leaks of information are actually one of the most important weapons in our nation's arsenal, in terms of keeping us free. Large scale conspiracies generally can't survive for very long, because someone gets a conscience and reports them.

We already have a media that, by and large, has substituted reading press releases and then the other party's counter releases for actual investigation and fact checking, we already have reason to wonder if Watergate, if it happened today, would even be caught by our main stream news outlets.

We need an official, federally-recognized anonymous source protection for journalists (not to protect the sources, should they be found, but to protect the journalists from having to finger their sources). Apparently, 49 states already have such a thing at the state level, with none of them Federally recognized. But of course, the odds of our getting such a thing are inversely proportional to how much the party in power has to hide.

It'll be interesting, given that last sentence, to see whether we get such a law. There's certainly enough brouhaha over Cooper and Miller to justify discussing one now.

Liam.