On Monday, the Detroit Free Press won a much-deserved Pulitzer Prize, for reporting the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal.
The next day, a federal judge ruled that Free Press reporter Richard Ashenfelter wouldn’t have to go to jail for refusing to reveal confidential sources.
This was in a case involving a former federal prosecutor who was under investigation. The judge said the reporter had the right to plead his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Possibly the hardest thing for non-journalists to understand about the profession is that in order to undercover any kind of fraud, corruption or general skullduggery, journalists need sources who have to remain confidential. Think about it. What if you suspected your boss was stealing from the government? You probably wouldn’t want to rush to publicly accuse him. What if they aren’t true?
Even if they are, your boss might get rid of you, or at least make your life miserable while the process went forward.
If your boss’s name happens to be Don Corleone, you might even end up with cement overshoes. But what if the confidential sources are just trying to use the press for their own purposes?
Often, they are. That’s why journalists have a saying: “If your mama says she loves ya, check it out.”
Legally, however, journalists have no special standing in the eyes of federal law. If a judge says you have to reveal your source, you have to do it or go to jail. The ethics of this profession dictate that you keep your promise to your sources. And in such cases, you are honor-bound to go to jail if necessary.
Those sympathetic to the press have been trying to get Congress to pass a federal “shield law” to deal with this problem. So far, that hasn’t happened. What has happened, however, is that the bottom has fallen out of the economy of the newspaper business.
Newspapers have been the only medium with enough trained journalists to do the kind of investigatory work needed to uncover scandals like the one in Detroit. But the economics that made all this possible no longer work. Newspapers across the nation are suffering massive revenue losses from decreased advertising and circulation, and have too much debt to service. Gannett, the company that owns the Free Press, is closing five suburban newspapers next month.
When they do, there will be nobody to closely watch the politicians in those towns, at least for now.
You know, they say newspapers are dead. Ted Turner, in fact, said that in 1981. However, maybe not quite. On the day after last year’s presidential election, virtually every paper in the country had to print extra copies. But what’s important is not so much that newspapers survive, but that serious and important journalism does.
Whether it is on dead trees or electrons doesn‘t matter very much, as long as it is vibrant, honest, and truly accessible to all.
Good for people to know.
Posted by: Belinda | April 26, 2009 at 07:50 PM