Come To Me My Pretties

One of the earliest causes I espoused here was taking reporters to task for their self-interested casuistry when it came to the intersection of reporters with the law. (See, here, here, here, here, and here) Now it has dawned upon some folks that the Libby trial has come and gone, reporters have been subpoenaed and testified, without the predicted destruction of the free press. Some in the press are evening questioning their previous hysterical hand wringing. Here is Jack Shafer at Slate: The Libby prosecutor didn't savage the First Amendment.

Thanks to the Valerie Plame investigation, the First Amendment lies in tatters on the ground, and a chilling effect has already started to freeze out press sources.

That's what many reporters and academics would have you believe. But now that the Plame investigation has ended, and all the subpoenas and threats of subpoenas are history, I don't buy it. The press (including me) may have overreacted in regarding special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as some sort of Torquemada, and our fears of a shredded First Amendment are starting to look a little overwrought.

...

The popular image painted of Fitzgerald by the press (again, I'm one of the painters) is that he used subpoenas and threats of subpoenas to extract the leaker's identity from reporters. The Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten expresses that view in a recent column that belittles Fitzgerald. Rutten writes that Fitzgerald didn't break the case with a "meticulous FBI investigation" or "brilliant courtroom interrogation." Fitzgerald "simply dragged the journalists who had written or reported on the Plame affair before a federal grand jury and threatened them with jail unless they revealed their sources of information."

That's not exactly true. Fitzgerald and the FBI had made serious headway in the case long before he subpoenaed journalists. Not until May 2004 did he call the first journalists, Russert and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper, to testify. Far from dragging all the reporters before the grand jury to spill the beans on their sources, Fitzgerald strove to reach what everybody—except journalists—might now call reasonable middle ground to collect the truth about the alleged crime. He took testimony from Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler (see his statement), a deposition from subpoenaed Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, and a deposition from Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. How intrusive was Woodward's interrogation? Woodward, who got releases from his sources, said on Larry King Live, "I was able to answer every question."

See. Owning up to your responsibilities and duties under the law might be unpleasant, like going to the dentist, but you can actually muddle through it with your fragile little egos intact.

Who knew?

Oh, that's right. I did.