In response to Judith Miller's imprisonment, the FFIA attempts to set limits on when the Federal government can compel journalists to reveal their sources.
The tricky part is determining just who a "journalist" is.
Excluding bloggers from the bill seems silly during this transformative stage in media. In five years, blogs could be a main source of news for many Americans, or they could die out in favor of some other cultural fixation (just as blogs replaced personal homepages, and personal homepages replaced family newsletters, and family newsletters replaced talking to people you care about). Since we don't know how blogs will affect the media, we might want to wait and see before contributing to legislative bloat.
But if anything, I think the bill is too permissive. The bill covers anyone who disseminates information by any electronic means, and who publishes a periodical in print or electronic form. To me, it seems like that would include bloggers, despite Lugar's suggestion to the contrary.
If bloggers are covered, that's when things get really scary.
...[T]he Internet and participatory media have turned everyone into the media. The Fourth Estate used to be pretty well-defined--the guys who owned the broadcast licenses and the big pressses were the "media", period. But now, the definition isn't so clear...
-CIO Insight
So under this bill, if bloggers are covered, anyone can receive protection against revealing sources if they just publish the information on their blog. Since anyone can have a blog, all information becomes protected, even information that shouldn't be.
Which brings us back to the principal case:
Libby was not promoting the "free flow of information" or blowing the whistle on government corruption or evil in high places. Libby was defending the White House against a political attack... it is very hard to see how it would have been the sort of communication that is so important to democratic government that either participant should be excused from testifying before a grand jury about it.
-TigerHawk
So what information should be protected? How about protecting any 1) widely disseminated information that was 2) necessarily secured through an explicit promise of confidentiality, so long as 3) the information was reasonably believed to be accurate by the source, and 4) that concealing the identity of the source does not impede an investigation into matters more serious than those revealed by the source?
Basically, if you get valuable info, it's only protected if you share it. You have to try to get it without promising confidentiality first. The source can't just be lying. And the source's concealment can't conceal crimes that are more serious than the matters revealed (so a murderer won't be concealed for identifying a jaywalker, someone possibly guilty of treason won't be concealed after revealing fodder for a political attack).
Thoughts?
This is a difficult issue due to competing values on which this country was founded. On one side you need a free press to maintain a truly representative and corruption-free democracy. On the other side you have the need to a right for privacy.
ReplyDeleteTo keep my comments short I won't explain the need for a free press (I'll just hope everyone agrees). I will comment on the press and why people are nagging on them to reveal sources. The average American does not trust the press (see the continued existence of Fox News as example 1).
Most people despise the media for one reason or another (the public opinion polls support this), but why is this? The press has become more and more partisan. Now, this is an attack on neither Fox News, nor CNN. The basic fact is that with the explosion of cable news since the early-mid 1990s, news talk has become more and more vitriolic. Even PBS' the McLaughlin group pits liberal mouthpiece, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift (has she ever had an original thought?) versus the xenophobic Puritan Pat Buchanan.
I bring this up because this has not only forced a move towards an angrier media, but a compromised media (from intense competition).
Go to the top journalism professors in the country and they will tell you that most journalists today have compromised standards for what they allow to be a source to their story. With loose standards, and controversial opinions on what is "newsworthy" comes the potential for invasion of privacy.
I think we should be careful therefore who we consider a journalist, if the journalists we train in higher education have problems doing their very important job correctly.
Engel:
ReplyDeleteSuppose I know who a murderer is, but don't want to tell anyone. The court knows I know, and demands that I tell them.
I publish the murderer's confession on my blog anonymously, and suddenly I don't have to say anything to the court. John Grisham's The Client is now only 40 pages long, and has a very unsatisfying ending.
In addition, no one can be subpoenaed for anything anymore, and trials become completely unable to find out any facts, reducing our judicial system to one of whimsy.
We seem to have journalists conspiring with those in power to smear a critic, to silence an open voice. Protecting this behavior doesn't strengthen our free press, it tarnishes it.
ReplyDeleteBill Keller (Executive Editor of the New York Times) has written about his failures in this case. His ideas about journalistic ethics are probably more considered than mine. Crooks and Liars has the memo here. It's an excellent read. In it, he quotes Dick Stevenson:
"I think there is, or should be, a contract between the paper and its reporters. The contract holds that the paper will go to the mat to back them up institutionally -- but only [if the journalist has] conducted him or herself in a way consistent with our legal, ethical and journalistic standards."