Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — For years, Sean Hannity has skirted ethical boundaries with his role on a television network with “news” in its name. Yet it’s never been as stark as now, with the committee investigating last year’s Capitol insurrection seeking his testimony. The Jan. 6 select committee has revealed a series of texts where Hannity privately advised former President Donald Trump before, during and after the assault, and is seeking his insight about what happened in those days. The popular Fox News Channel prime-time host hasn’t said what he will do, but he’s slammed the congressional probe as a...

...[N]ews organizations are trying to outwit a new generation of prosecutors and protect reporters and sources in what they believe to be an increasingly antagonistic environment. In some instances, news executives are issuing guidelines to educate and retrain their staffs about taking precautions to protect their notes and other source materials from being sought as evidence in legal cases. Some are also looking at technological fixes like heightened encryption and e-mail messages that expire after a period of time.... Several news organizations had already begun clamping down on the use of anonymous sources and tightening the rules for when they...

Walter Pincus, a 71-year-old Washington Post reporter who has earned the respect and envy of his colleagues for the government contacts he has cultivated in more than 30 years at the paper, walked into a conference room at a Washington law firm two weeks ago and read a statement. "As someone who covers national security and intelligence, I depend on confidential sources more than most reporters," he told Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the disclosure to journalists of the identity of a covert C.I.A. agent, Valerie Plame. "My sources take a chance when they trust me...