Journalist 'shield' law gains steam in Senate - Washington Times

Journalist 'shield' law gains steam in Senate - Washington Times

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At the end of the linked article a reporter who spent 85 days in jail rather than reveal her sources as ordered by a judge is quoted as saying, "'If journalists cannot be trusted to guarantee confidentiality, then journalists cannot function. There cannot be a free press,' Mrs. Miller said before she was led away."

Unfortunately, Mrs. Miller's statement begs the question, "Can we trust the press?" Given the appalling performance of the Main Stream Media over the past couple of years, the answer is obvious: The press cannot be trusted.

The idea that it is good to provide protection for free speech beyond that overriding protection provided by the 1st Amendment is an attractive one. Attractive at least, until the logic of such a protection is followed to the probable unintended consequences.

Put yourself into the position of a supervisor in either industry or the government and you wake-up one morning to find your name plastered across the headlines of a national paper unfairly accusing you and your organization of some nebulous foul deed (usually dealing with either the environment or national security, of course). The source of the information is a "whistleblower."

You naturally want to track down the source of the inaccurate report but are stymied. The reporter doesn't have to reveal your accuser to you and unless you can face your accuser you can do no more than deny the allegation. But the damage is done to both your and your organization's reputation with the public. Your denial might carry some weight if you could face your accuser and show that the accuser has a motive for the lie but you cannot. The reporter won't reveal the name of the self-certified whistleblower. Your only option is to go to court and hope that the reporter will be forced to identify the whistleblower so you and your organization can mount a defense to the accusations. It's an expensive, and not always fruitful, process.

The idea of whistleblower protection is based on the premise that people who expose government or corporate malfeasance should be protected from retribution. No one disputes that premise or that whistleblowers should be protected. But if you can't determine who the whistleblower is you are denied the absolute necessity of being able to face your accuser and properly defend yourself. As much as we wish to attribute nothing but best intentions to the motives of whistleblowers, often the exact opposite is true. Whistleblowers are as often as not, acting out of pure self-interest rather than the interest of the public in general.

When you provide a reporter, one who is looking for the "big story" and wants to impress his editors, with the protections of the proposed legislation you essentially place the sword of truth in the hands of an individual who need have no conscience. When you combine the protected reporter with the self-certified expert of a whistleblower and you have the journalistic equivalent of nitro-glycerin.

In the last campaign and election, the press was unabashedly in the tank for Barack Obama. He and his running mate, Joe Biden, could do no wrong. Gaffs and outright fabrications, common in all politicians, were ignored which is doubly amazing considering some of the outrageous statements made by Biden. The bottom line is that the press while assuming the mantle of objectivity became a partisan player in the political process. The Republican candidates were scrutinized with a magnifying glass and teams of reporters scoured trashcans and garbage dumps from Arizona to Alaska trying to find something wrong with John McCain and Sarah Palin. Rumors and innuendo reference both of them were headlined while the Democratic candidates were given a total pass. Were it not for talk radio and Fox news, they would still be being given a total pass. The attitude of the Main Stream Media was, as Chris Matthews infamously and breathlessly indicated, tingly up and down their legs when it came to Obama.

The problem with the press is that they have no one to which they are truly accountable. We can say, of course, that the public and advertisers hold them accountable, and that is true to a certain extent, but within the kingdom of the newspaper, despite the establishment in some papers of an ombudsman, there is no one to ensure that the reporting is true and accurate. News management's only concern is that they are protected from liable and that the story meets the editorial direction of the paper's owners and editors. Other than that, the only goal is to ensure that the paper sells.

We idealize the press as neutral but they are clearly anything but. And they never have been. While we often gaze at history with rather rose-tinted glasses, there are numerous incidents where the press has abused its public trust and done everything from start wars to ruin people just because they had the power to do so. It is clear that the Framers of the Constitution felt that free speech and a free press were necessary for any democracy. But it is also clear that they knew that the press was inherently biased and did not believe that the press should be given any type of special protections. Indeed, it is clear that they believed that reporters should have no more protection for what they write than the common citizen. The 1st Amendment is sufficient for that and legislative interference to provide additional protections is unwise and unnecessary.

Let your representatives know that you oppose this legislation today.