US Journalists Need Shield Law and Standards

On occasion, distinguishing the message from the messenger is difficult no matter how necessary. So, it is with the New York Times’ alleged journalist Judith Miller and her recent demands for a federal shield law that would prevent journalists from going to jail when they refuse to reveal a confidential source. Having served 85 days for contempt in the Plame-Libby-Rove mess, she certainly has standing. And one shouldn’t let her incompetent, unethical and almost treasonous cheerleading in the run up to the attack on Iraq interfere with the merits of the case. That said, her utter lack of standards as a journalist suggest that any such law should require a detailed code of behavior for reporters.

Ms. Miller stands condemned by her own account of the situation at the vastly over-rated New York Times. Calling herself “Miss Run Amok,” Miller explained, “I can do whatever I want.” No, a good journalist can’t. Her own notes read “W.M.D. -- I got it totally wrong. The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong.” If one’s sources are wrong, a good reporter will find that out and hang them. And her reporting on the hunt for those non-existent weapons of mass destruction included a US government security clearance, which explicitly means she was trusted to keep her mouth shut – hardly what a reporter does. Retired CBS News correspondent Bill Lynch said, “This is as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists.”

Very well, so Ms. Miller deserved to spend time in jail not for contempt of court but for contempt of the truth and for propagandizing in favor of a war of aggression (Hans Fritzsche was tried for this at Nuremberg, acquitted due to insufficient stature in the Nazi regime, and then condemned by German national courts to 9 years in prison). But that does not reduce the gravity of jailing her without trial for keeping a confidential source out of the public debate on who leaked a CIA agent’s name to the media.

Were she a real journalist, Ms. Miller would have had occasion to promise confidentiality to a source. Whistleblowers who fear the loss of their job and Mafia informants who fear for their lives may well have information that the public in a free society needs to have. Securing that information may require a promise of anonymity, and in fulfilling its public function, the press should have some sort of privileged status in order to bolster the public good. For example, Judith Miller never wrote a story about the Plame Affair – perhaps she never should have been called to testify.

However, that privileged status must carry with it iron-clad standards. As a rule, a journalist simply shouldn’t use anonymous sources. If they are necessary, there should be some corroboration of their allegations, statements or testimony. And a promise of confidentiality should not be given in perpetuity. And a journalist ought to explain before granting such a promise that in the event of a criminal trial, the promise is null and void. This would be a much easier case to make if the poster child for journalistic integrity were a real journalist.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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