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WSJ: Jailing Reporters - The press corps unleashed a prosecutor on itself.
opinionjournal.com ^ | July 1, 2005 | Editorial

Posted on 07/01/2005 5:03:49 AM PDT by OESY

...The truth... is that this is a debacle that some in the press corps have brought down upon themselves....

Liberal editorial pages were among the loudest in demanding that a special counsel be appointed to find the leaker. And only many months later, when Ms. Miller was in the dock, did New York Times editorials finally get around to admitting that the leak might not even be a crime. Their partisan loathing for Mr. Bush caused these editors to overlook the risks even to their own reporting self-interest.

They have also left the press more vulnerable than it was before. The First Amendment is nearly absolute in its protection of the right to publish, but it is far less categorical in protecting the news-gathering process. Courts have tried to balance media access to sources and information against other rights (say, to a fair trial) and government needs (such as grand jury probes). Yet the Times fought this current battle as if it were a replay of New York Times v. Sullivan, the famous libel case, only to lose in court. Especially by inviting a 3-0 defeat at the hands of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Times has probably left everyone in the media less able to protect sources against future prosecutorial raids. While 31 states have so-called "shield laws" protecting source disclosure, the federal government does not.

In explaining his decision to turn over Mr. Cooper's notes, Time Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine said, "Once the [Supreme] Court denied cert., I decided we aren't above the law." We admire Ms. Miller for her willingness to go to jail to honor a personal promise to a source. But a journalistic institution has a duty not to be cavalier about its reporter's freedom, much less the rule of law.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: cia; firstamendment; josephwilson; judithmiller; justicedepartment; matthewcooper; mediaschadenfreude; newyorktimes; normanpearlstine; patrickfitzgerald; plame; specialprosecutor; sulllivan; timemagazine
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To: OESY; headsonpikes; beyond the sea; E.G.C.; Military family member; TexasTransplant; imintrouble; ..
The 500 pound gorilla in this issue is the fact that the Constitution does not presume that journalists are objective. Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored competing newspapers in which to wage their partisan battles, and there is no crime in that at all - as the First Amendment clearly implies.

There is no crime in a newspaper being partisan, even to the point of proclaiming its own objectivity(!), straining at gnats and swallowing camels all the while. I view those sponsored newspapers as being the start of political parties, which the Framers styled "faction" - and had hoped to avoid (the 12th Amendment was necessitated by the reality of political parties).

But if you view newspapers as having the motive and opportunity to be partisan, it makes no sense to give the perpetrators of journalism special rights. The idea that the newspapers should have the right, codified in law, to demand a special prosecutor (a law, now lapsed, which Clinton advocated and self-righteously signed) or to be able to refuse to testify about a crime about which a particular journalist patently has relevant knowledge, is ridiculous.

And if it is ridiculous to propose that newspapers should have such authority, what is one to say about the idea that government sponsored entities like licensed broadcasters or even PBS and NPR should have such authority!? And what should be said about the idea that we should accept such imposture on the basis that when the government does so it uses a novel and unrepresentative branch of government completely divorced from the framework by which even judges are selected!?

If the government is presumptively wise and objective, we need no elections which might dispossess the wise and objective solons who populate it. But if we do in fact need elections to keep the government even minimally honest and public-spirited, is it appropriate that we allow the government to favor the few among us whom the government deigns to favor with its imprimatur that their words are "broadcast in the public interest"???

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

21 posted on 07/01/2005 5:53:55 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: OESY
And only many months later, when Ms. Miller was in the dock, did New York Times editorials finally get around to admitting that the leak might not even be a crime

If the high ranking administration officials who leaked the story turn out to be close to Bush, you can bet the NY Times will completely reverse course and decide it is a crime again. I have a feeling it is someone close to Bush, if it were Wilson or Powell, Time would never give in. But if it hurts Bush, why should Time give a damn.
22 posted on 07/01/2005 6:02:25 AM PDT by jimboster (Vitajex, whatcha doin' to me)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Media bias bump.


23 posted on 07/01/2005 6:09:52 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: OESY
The legacy media gurus think they're above the law. They were shocked when they discovered it wasn't meant for the "little people." Their feigned outrage is as sincere as Leona Helmsley's protestations she did things differently... well because she was entitled! I loved seeing them taken down a couple of notches.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
24 posted on 07/01/2005 6:33:36 AM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
But if you view newspapers as having the motive and opportunity to be partisan, it makes no sense to give the perpetrators of journalism special rights.

Unfortunately, they do have special rights, thanks to CFR. They can make as many statements as they like supporting one candidate or another at election time, but we peons cannot do the same without problems from the FEC.

25 posted on 07/01/2005 6:40:26 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: OESY

I can't wait for the first Kennedy staffer to head up the river for leaking Top Secret info. NOW THAT IS JUSTICE


26 posted on 07/01/2005 6:42:43 AM PDT by marty60
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To: OESY

They got off too easily. In olden times the scoundrels of reporters would be tossed to lions. I miss the old days.


27 posted on 07/01/2005 7:12:49 AM PDT by GSlob
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To: Zacs Mom

I've always liked that phrase for some reason. I like it even better now. Thanks for the definition. If I could only draw, I have an hilarious mind picture.


28 posted on 07/01/2005 7:14:15 AM PDT by SwatTeam
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To: Senator Kunte Klinte
Joe Wilson Reality Check


The following might seem a moot point, but it is one of those things that almost everyone in the mainstream media has stated as fact and I just want to be on record as pointing out the absolute stupidity of it.

In the latest insane rant by Ted Rall, which Jayson comments on below, I was reminded of the line that was standard in every Joe Wilson story in the MSM. Rall says “the revelation, which effectively ended Plame’s CIA career and may have endangered her life, followed her husband Joe Wilson’s publication of a New York Times op-ed piece that embarrassed the Bush Administration by debunking its claims that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Joe Wilson went to Africa and sat by the hotel pool sipping tea with invited guests. He asked them whether the claims that Saddam had attempted to purchase uranium were true. He was told, by those he spoke to, that they were not. Excuse me for using my voice I normally reserve for talking to two year olds, but that does not “debunk” anything and it most certainly does not disprove anything as most all Democrats and those in the MSM claimed.

Bush said in his SOTU speech that British intelligence sources said that Saddam had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa. They stand by that claim to this day. Joe Wilson came back and wrote an op-ed piece and went all over television saying that Bush lied when he made that statement because his “investigation” had proved it was not true. I know, I know. It is just silly to think that Joe Wilson could have talked to everyone that might have had knowledge of such communications with Saddam, and it is even sillier to think that anyone talking to Saddam about such a thing would have admitted it. (Actually it is way beyond silly, but I am trying to be charitable.) But such logical thinking only applies in the real world, not the world of liberal politics and the mainstream media.

I could go on about how if Joe Wilson was so worried about his wife’s “secret” identity he would not have been jumping in front of every camera in sight. I could also say that it is entirely possible that what “effectively ended Plame’s CIA career” was not a revelation of her CIA position in a Bob Novak column, but just as likely might have been the revelation of her recommendation (which Wilson lied about) to send her unqualified, publicity hound husband on such an important and sensitive mission. But I won’t.

Read my Plame Refresher
here.

UPDATE: Power Line has an example of a non-Wilson untruth that CNN is stating as fact. This is the same untruth that Chris Matthews is especially guilty of having repeated about a million times, even back to guests who were appearing on his show giving evidence to the contrary. It is sad that I could probably come up with a half dozen such examples off the top of my head. When will the mainstream media be held to account for spreading misinformation to their readers and viewers? Hmmm. I just remembered the last CNN ratings I saw. I guess they are already being held to account.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin has the picture of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame that I saw recently on one of the cable news shows. If the Vanity Fair photo of Plame in her Hollywood shades and scarf were not enough proof that she was not exactly devastated by her “outing,” this one surely is.

-- Lorie Byrd, polipundit.com, July 5, 2005
29 posted on 07/05/2005 12:36:35 PM PDT by OESY
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