| Topic Name: |
In Defense of Anonymous Sources |
| Message Name: |
In Defense of Anonymous Sources |
| Date Posted: |
06/06/2005 |
| Message: |
Mark Felt's decision to out himself has rekindled interest in a story critical to the protection of our democracy that was built on anonymous - and accurate - sources.
In this week's New Yorker, one of the legendary reporters of our time, Sy Hersh, put it this way: "Anonymous sources were essential to the Watergate story. Reporters were in frequent contact with members of Nixon??s Cabinet and with high-level investigative and intelligence officials. Some of the men who met with the President, and advised him, provided scathing details about his demeanor and his often ill-advised outbursts."
Hersh wrote some of the better non-Woodstein scoops during the investigation. His article is at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050613ta_talk_hersh
Over the course of the past week Woodward, Bernstein and their former editor, Ben Bradlee, have recounted the remarkable story of the lengths they took to protect the identity of their source, who gave them information critical to development of the story of a corrupt president and his co-conspirators, including the U.S. attorney general. And, of course, in the past months we've heard a steady drumbeat of criticism of anonymous sources, accompanied by increasing pressure from politicians who want to know who it is who's providing information to the media that they find embarassing, and have no compunction about jailing reporters who refuse to reveal the identity of sources.
One can not help but wonder what would have happened had Watergate been a current scandal. And I think it's fair to say that a grand jury would be empaneled and subpoenas issued to modern Woodward/Bernsteins. Rather than their scoops being on the front pages, their jailing would be.
And the public is not better served by putting reporters in jail than by having them providing information to the public.
The climate in this country right now is not good. As columnist Simon Houpt put it in today's Toronto Globe and Mail: "The U.S. news media in general is perceived to be walking on eggshells these days because of attacks from politicians and partisans. But there are some parallels to the Watergate days. In her 1997 autobiography Personal History, the former Post publisher Katharine Graham recalled that President Richard Nixon hated the press, especially the "Eastern-establishment elitist press," a remark echoed in President George W. Bush's dismissal these days of the "liberal media.""
There's an old saying that bad cases make bad law. And certainly there have been some instances in which people, knowing they'd be protected by anonymity, put out bad information. But I suggest to those assembled here that good cases - like that of the Washington Post and Mark Felt - should trump the bad cases, and that it is far past time for a federal shield law that unequivocally protects those reporters who protect us all.
|
|
