NPR's "Fresh Air" program today features interviews with journalists Judith Miller and Matt Cooper, who face imprisonment for refusing to divulge their sources on the Valerie Plame "outing".
(Online audio available after 3pm Eastern)
Terry Gross also interviewed Miller and Cooper's attorney, Floyd Abrams, and then spoke with Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, who argues that journalists do not have a First Amendment right to not testify on what they know regarding criminal conduct.
The prevailing spirit on DailyKos seems to side with Chapman, but how much of that is purely out of a hunger to see someone, as Joseph Wilson put it, "do the perp walk."
I strongly feel that whoever leaked Plame's identity should pay. The legal precedent, in my layman's understanding, seems to be that the right to not reveal a journalist's sources is evaluated by the courts on a case-by-case basis and is determined by balancing the public need for the information versus a court's--or in this case, a grand jury's--need to know who the sources identity.
But the risk of arguing against Miller and Cooper should be considered more broadly, especially in the context of the persistent war by the current regime on press freedom.
If the Supreme Court overrules the Appeals Court decision against Miller and Cooper, will that enable more intimidation of the press by the Bush regime?
Take a hard look at this issue and imagine reversing the roles during a Clinton or a future Democratic President.
Is there really a way for the press to live up to its obligation to balance the powers held by corporations and the state without the freedom to solicit information without fear of exposing their sources, even in cases where the information leaked was for dubious purposes?
My own opinion is not solidly formed on this question, and few things would make me happier than seeing someone high up in the White House take a deserved fall on this scandal, but my gut tells me that a much greater interest in a free nation compels us to swallow the distaste of letting the culprit escape to protect the ability of journalists to elicit confidential sources.
Note: It is important to remember (though not central to the particulars of the complaint against Miller and Cooper, that unlike Novak, they chose NOT to publish the information on Plame. Cooper subsequently wrote about the case after Novak, but more from an angle of metanews, that is about the coverage of the leak itself.
Now, let me know what you think: