Time Magazine: R.I.P. To A Journalistic Principle
Sun Jul 3, 2005 17:21
64.140.158.86
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin's direct telephone number at his firm, Patton Boggs, is 202-457-6190. His e-mail address is rluskin@pattonboggs.com .
Here is Luskin's bio page on the PB website:
http://www.pattonboggs.com/Attorneys/
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Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case
http://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/rove.htm
Time Magazine: R.I.P. To A Journalistic Principle
by Joe Gandelman
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1120149449.shtml
Time Magazine is about to discard a fundamental journalist principle — and if Newsweek doesn't do the same thing, you can bet Newsweek's reporting is going to have many more details than Times' in the future:
Time Inc. said Thursday it would comply with a court order to deliver the notes of a reporter threatened with jail in a probe of the leak of a CIA officer's name. The New York Times, which is also involved in the dispute, said it was "deeply disappointed" at the move, which came days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two journalists' appeal.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is threatening to jail Matthew Cooper, Time's White House correspondent, and Judith Miller of the Times for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources. Time said it believed its cooperation would make Cooper's jailing unnecessary.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the reporters' appeal and the grand jury investigating the leak expires in October. If jailed, the reporters would be freed at that time.
In a statement, Time, which is a defendant in the case along with the two reporters, said it believes "the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society." '
But it also said that despite its concerns, it will turn over the records to the special counsel investigating the leak.
"The same Constitution that protects the freedom of the press requires obedience to final decisions of the courts and respect for their rulings and judgments. That Time Inc. strongly disagrees with the courts provides no immunity," the statement said.
The New York Times, of course, is aghast:
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the newspaper's publisher, said: "We are deeply disappointed by Time Inc.'s decision to deliver the subpoenaed records." He noted that one of its reporters served 40 days in jail in 1978 in a similar dispute.
"Our focus is now on our own reporter, Judith Miller, and in supporting her during this difficult time," Sulzberger said in a statement. Unlike Time Inc., the newspaper itself is not a defendant because it did not publish anything. Miller did some reporting but did not write a story, while Cooper wrote a story about CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Protecting a journalist's sources has been a paramount principle for many many years. It's not just a convenient excuse, as some think, to make up sources. In fact, as we have seen in recent years, anyone who makes up sources eventually finds that their career has effectively ended or they lose that job and only if they have some luck can they land one of the same stature (it does happen but that isn't the norm).
Now the next issue will become: will the identity of the source become public knowledge? And, if so, is it someone who is high profile. And if that is the case: will that person face the required legal consequences for his actions?
So in this case there are going to be two lingering issues here — the shield law and how corporate media respond to it and the actual source and how the system responds once it has a name.
Related Posts (on one page):
1. Newsweek Suggests Rove May Be To Blame In Plame
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1120362515.shtml
2. Was Karl Rove A Source in Plame Case?
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1120289134.shtml
3. Time Magazine: R.I.P. To A Journalistic Principle
http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1120149449.shtml
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Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin's direct telephone number at his firm, Patton Boggs, is 202-457-6190. His e-mail address is rluskin@pattonboggs.com .
Here is Luskin's bio page on the PB website:
http://www.pattonboggs.com/Attorneys/
============================================
Leak of Identity of CIA Operative Valerie Plame:
http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/iraq/documents.html
Karl Rove and the CIA Leak Case
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/
Hunt for CIA-leak clues intensifies
http://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/clues.htm
NEWS INDEX: http://www.newswithviews.com/
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