The guilty verdict handed down against Scooter Libby on Tuesday has considerable political effects. It certainly doesn’t make the White House look good.
For a quick review of the four-year ordeal, read this timeline.
But another important angle of the story involves the press and the lack of a federal shield law. Currently, 30 states boast shield laws, which protect reporters from having to reveal confidential sources in legal proceedings.
Ideally, shield laws allow the press to better serve its role as a watchdog – “whistle-blowers” who are privy to wrongdoings can freely share their information with reporters and, in return, receive the promise of anonymity. History has proven the worth of confidential sources: Deep Throat (William Mark Felt Sr.), of course, is the most well-known example.
Unfortunately, the Libby trial has undermined the value of anonymous sources. Several journalists involved in the case were ordered to reveal their sources in court, and New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent almost three months in jail after she refused.
Even more disheartening, details revealed during the trial made the reporters involved look like irresponsible protectors of shady characters. That only reinforces the publics’ skepticism and distrust of the media.
Certainly, the Libby trial did not help the media’s push for a federal shield law. If anything, it damaged it.
And that’s unfortunate.
I agree with this Newsday editorial: When the courts force reporters to identify confidential sources, the public’s right to know what government officials are doing is jeopardized.
OK, no one else has bitten, so I will: Why should journalists be legally shielded from having to reveal sources when those sources have confessed to the journalists that they did something illegal? And even more so, why should journalists be shielded when those sources committed an illegal act precisely when they shared information with those journalists?
Spilling Valerie Plame’s identity was illegal (not to mention dangerous). If the person who told those journalists Plame’s identity committed a crime by doing so, why should the journalists be shielded from revealing the name of that person? For that matter, why would they even _want_ to shield that person’s name?
We’re not talking about a priest-parishioner confessional relationship here. Indeed, I don’t see where we’re talking about a relationship at all. We all know that free speech isn’t completely unlimited, and that some forms of speech are a crime. So would you consider this form of speech, revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent, a crime? And if so, why would you say that the journalists to whom it was revealed have the right not to say who committed that crime?