Late yesterday, the Center for Public Integrity released an FBI memo saying that a senior ABC News reporter had been primed as a possible FBI informant for most of the 1990s.
A once-classified FBI memo reveals that the bureau treated a senior ABC News journalist as a potential confidential informant in the 1990s, pumping the reporter to ascertain the source of a sensational but uncorroborated tip that the network had obtained during its early coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.
The journalist, whose name is not disclosed in the document labeled “secret,” not only cooperated but provided the identity of a confidential source, according to the FBI memo — a possible breach of journalistic ethics if he or she did not have the source’s permission.
The reporter claimed that the Oklahoma City bombing had been the work of Iraqi intelligence--a claim that turned out to be false. When pressed, the reporter said his source for the original claim was former CIA agent Vincent Cannistraro, who had been on contract with ABC as a consultant. And it wasn't the first time either--the memo says that the reporter had provided "highly reliable and accurate information" to the FBI on several occasions.
Needless to say, giving up a source is disturbing enough. But the mere fact that the FBI tried to use a reporter as a mole is beyond unacceptable.
This report has journalism professors up in arms.
“Obviously any reporter who is simultaneously working for a media outlet and giving info to the government has a conflict of interest," says Jill Olmsted, who teaches journalistic ethics in her role as journalism division director for American University’s School of Communication.
Olmsted acknowledges that there are situations in which a journalist should share information with the government, particularly when there is a danger to the general public or a life is at stake. But she calls sharing information with the government a “slippery slope.”
Tim McGuire, a journalism professor at Arizona State University, believes the fact the reporter was assigned an informant number and had contributed information in the past precludes any argument that he was sharing this information in the public good.
“I mean, he’s not only a rat, he’s a really huge rat,” says McGuire. “He’s obviously decided that helping the government on an ongoing basis is more important than being a journalist.”
Gawker reports that CBS News' Washington bureau chief, Chris Isham, was the informant--a claim Isham adamantly denies. Whoever it is, though, if this "reporter" is still employed anywhere, s/he should be fired. Apparently the FBI forgot that the CIA got in hot water back in the 1970s for using reporters as "assets."