The News Media vs. the Innocent
03.28.2008 - 11:09 AMShould Congress enact a “shield law” for journalists, exempting them from the obligation to disclose their confidential sources to grand juries investigating crimes and in court cases?
I have explored some of the implications of such a law for our national security. But there is a civil-court dimension to the problem as well. In The News Media vs. the Innocent, Steve Chapman gets to the essence of it in today’s Chicago Tribune.
Years ago, Ray Donovan, Ronald Reagan’s labor secretary, was prosecuted for corruption, only to be acquitted. After the verdict, Donovan asked plaintively, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
Steven Hatfill knows where to go to get his reputation back. But upon arriving there, he finds the door blocked by someone who says her privileges are more important than his good name. That someone, of course, is a journalist. And, not surprisingly, she enjoys the broad support of other journalists, who have proved to be slow learners about the obligations they share with their fellow citizens.
Hatfill was a casualty of the anthrax scare of 2001. Just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, someone mailed letters containing anthrax spores to several news organizations and a pair of U.S. senators. Some 22 people were infected, and five died.
In the aftermath, the Justice Department labeled Hatfill, who had done research on biological warfare for the Army, a “person of interest.” Secret information leaked to the press suggested he was the terrorist behind the attacks.
But the suspicions were wrong. Hatfill asserted his innocence, and he was never charged in the case. He sued the government, the New York Times and others for damages. Federal Judge Reggie Walton concluded that the claims have “destroyed his life” even though “there’s not a scintilla of evidence to suggest Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with” the anthrax attacks.
To read the rest of Chapman’s column, click here.
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March 28th, 2008 at 4:40 PM
” ‘It’s important to remember here,’ he told me, ‘that these sources were not blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing but were allegedly doing something wrong in revealing the information about the identity of the suspect.’ ”
Exactly.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:38 PM
One does not need to indulge in postmodernist silliness to realize that journalism is an inherently nebulous concept. We could possibly delude ourselves during the era of the old media. Now the stuff has finally hit the fan because countless people post their opinions on the Internet. Setting up a free blog may take less than an hour. It is therefore utterly senseless for our courts and legislators to provide special protections to anyone claiming to be a journalist.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:13 AM
David,
special protections shouldn’t be awarded anybody–especially lawbreakers masquerading as journalists.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:49 PM
If a journalist has promised never to reveal a source’s identity, then the journalist should never reveal the source’s identity. Period.
That does not excuse the journalist from $5,000 per day fines; indeed, it obligates the journalist to pay those fines unto bankruptcy, and to go to jail thereafter without complaint. A contract is a contract, and journalists ought to honor them. Those who breach contracts ought to be subject to civil liability like everyone else. It is a stain on the ethics (!) of the profession for journalists to believe they ought to be exempt from contracts into which they willingly enter, especially contracts they are responsible for devising in the first place. Why should the targets of their anonymous sources be drafted to serve as contract underwriters?
If journalists think that’s too high a price to pay, then they should not promise unlimited confidentiality. They could make less expansive promises, for example, such as commit to maintain confidentiality subject to a court order. The prospective source can then evaluate the likelihood of being discovered and make an informed decision whether to leak. And neither the leaker nor the journalist needs to violate their contract.
What seems to be happening here is that journalists want to be able to enter into any contract with a source that pleases them, freely capture all of the upside risks of the contract, but then be allowed to skedaddle if downside risks materialize. They are like subprime mortgage borrowers. They want the profit on asset appreciation, but if the value of the house goes south they expect to be bailed out.