Back when columnist Robert Novak looked to be the main target of special federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, our professional press ethicists were tut-tutting about how they'd never "hide" behind journalistic privilege to abet a "crime." But now that a federal judge has held Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury the sources for his own Valerie Plame story, suddenly the eyebrows furrow and talk turns to the threat to the First Amendment...The media powers now wringing their collective hands at this prospect have no one to blame but themselves. As these columns pointed out from the start, in their enthusiasm for a criminal investigation that liberals saw as a twofer--discrediting a conservative columnist as well as the Bush Administration--they were really painting bull's-eyes on other reporters. We await comment from Geneva Overholser, Orville Schell and all the other journalistic sages who were so quick to find Mr. Novak unworthy of the usual press protections....
In recent decades we in the news business have depended less on legal privilege in protecting ourselves from being compelled to give up our sources than on a healthy recognition by most prosecutors that jailing reporters for standing on principle is not wise. What has been unleashed by the federal investigation into the Novak leak now threatens to alter that balance decisively. And those who only now decry the implications for First Amendment freedoms are coming very late to the game.
Great!
Thanks for posting this WSJ editorial.
To all the lunatic libs in charge of the media, and the mediots who work for them: "Be careful of what you wish for! Your wishes may come true and be an incredible nightmare the rest of your miserable lives"