Big news today. As I recently reported, the Supreme Court has declined to hear a case wherein reporters associated with the Valeria Plame affair (but not responsible for outing her) sought relief from a contempt-of-court ruling for refusing to release the names of their confidential sources.
This afternoon, Time, Inc., the publisher of Time magazine among numerous others (and a division of AOL-Time-Warner), today caved in and released documents that named reporter Matt Cooper's source. This gets Cooper off the hook, of course, but is nonetheless a distressing development. Time finally agreed to give up the documents only after they were threatened by the judge in the case with "very large fines," and after the special prosecutor threatened individual members of the corporation with contempt.
While the company was willing to let Matt Cooper go to jail without offering him much in the way of support (they did at least pay his legal bills), but as soon as they were threatened with fees and, God forbid, with personal consequences for executives, they caved right on in. It's great the way Time stands up for journalistic integrity, isn't it?
The New York Times Company, on the other hand, made an announcement criticizing Time and stating that they will absolutely not be giving up documents, fees be damned. This means Judith Miller, their reporter in this mess, probably is looking at jail time. That Ms. Miller is willing to accept jail rather than divulge her source speaks highly of her. But that the situation even exists speaks badly of our judicial system and our respect for press freedom.
3 comments:
I just finished reading the two NY Times articles in that paper today about Time Inc's decision to give in Mr. Cooper's information. I disagree with what you said about Time Inc. giving in because of the financial obligations. But I know you understand that in many ways this situation is a Catch 22 for both Time Inc. and the Times. I remember reading that Time Inc. would get charged $1800 a day if they didn't comply. But granted that Time Warner is a multi-billion or million dollar company, the decision has to be more about abiding by the law, than the money they would have to pay. I still feel like Mr. Cooper is not off the record yet, even with giving in his information. I feel like it was a defeat for Time Inc., and it's quite an injustice that they were in many ways forced to give in. One of the articles from the NY Times also noted that Time Inc. in the past has stood up for it's reporters. Thanks for your reply to my other comment.
I just feel that the Times' insistence that they've never given up a source in the past (even to the point of having one of their reporters spend 40 days in jail) is worthy of greater respect than Time Inc.'s decision to cave--and cave is exactly how I'd describe it.
Certainly the financial cost would be substantial, but the Times 20 years ago was on the knife-edge of profitability and still thwarted a grand jury investigation. Time, of course, is but a small part of the massive AOL-Time-Warner company, which is not particularly a journalistic outfit as it is a profit-generator. And when profit is your sole motive for existence it is easy to see why you would forsake integrity to save money. That's very sad, but it's also the way things go.
I hear now Mr. Cooper is said to be still facing jail time for personal actions still falling under "contempt of court," but not for the full 18 months.
Mr. Cooper is still going to face jail time! Wow, that is seriously not fair. I'm really surprised that this case hasn't been getting as much coverage as I thought it might, granted the Supreme Court's involvment and all. But maybe I'm just naive and think it's more serious then it really is. I've been trying to find information about the latest news about this case and I haven't found much. Thanks for the info!
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