Those Darn Reporters

Here is another media view of the current reporter/informant confidentiality controversy: The Loud Fight Over Reporters' Silence

This is more of fluff piece than anything else, so it isn't terrible informative. It does have the virtue of at least implying that there may be another (non-media) side to the story. But, once again, those intrepid reporters are our heroes. (They're "puckish!" Isn't that swell?)

Aren't there limits to this journalistic duty? Ramsdell said he could talk only if "released from my promise" by the source — and some reporters have testified in the Plame investigation when sources have given waivers. Absent a waiver, reporters occasionally maintain that they must keep silent though the heavens fall. In 1857, James Simonton of the New York Times said that even if a confidential source disclosed plans to blow up the U.S. Treasury, he would be obliged to keep the person's identity secret. Floyd Abrams, the lawyer representing Miller and Cooper, wouldn't extend the principle that far, but he does maintain that "the law can't distinguish between good leaks and bad."

Why doesn't this fill me with confidence in our nation's journalists? Terror, maybe, confidence, no.