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I have to say that I am not too suprised that the media is wrapped in knots around their secret sources and have come to identify keeping their sources' secrets a secret as in their best interest. Matt Cooper, Judith Miller, Bob Woodward, and now Viveca Novak (I'm sure there are others).
I have worked around these people, not in their lofty positions, but as a local journalist covering things such as the 2000 presidential primary and other issues. I have always been impressed by how pampered they are by their employers and the people they cover. I have also been impressed at how self selective and elite a clique it is at the highest ranks of journalism. Why don't we read and hear more stories on what it is like to be poor in America? Becasue few if any of these decision makers have ever experienced anything close to going hungry for lack of income. There are huge numbers of stories that never get written or produced because the people who should be doing it care more about status, access, and their own celebrety. And one of the primary reasons why is that they don't generally come from backgrounds where these issues were part of their lives. How many of them have ever lived paycheck to paycheck except for some stint as an intern somewhere? How many of them put themselves through Columbia or one of the few top of the top tier journalism schools? While I was a journalist I wrote a number of stories that cut at the claims of local leaders and was attacked for them. I also interviewed people such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and wrote stories that they didn't like and had their local hacks criticise me for them, even though there was not a word of inaccuracy and I followed the best practices of journalism. And for each of these stories as I went to bed wondering what the next day would bring as the paper hit I pacified my self doubts and fears by saying "What's the worst they could do? Send me back to a life of working in the woods or on a construction site or on a ski mountain making snow? All were hard work, but good and honorable work too.
Look at Woodward, he felt it was more in his interests to protect his access so he could write after-the-fact books and stories on how decisions are made rather than provide real-time reporting so that Americans can themselves make informed decisions.
But that is kind of the bottom line. It's all about the reporter and not the role they play in a democracy. It's a role, that when practiced well and ethically, means you write difficult stories that put you at risk for criticism and losing access. If you write good factual pieces then you can sleep at night, even if you have challenged a leader in your local community or nation. And if you know you can survive beyond journalism should the worst of the worst happen -- losing your job -- you know you can thrive. For me it meant maybe being a sawyer again. For someone like Miller it more than likely means writing a book, becoming a consultant, and falling back on a silk parachute.
Isn't it sickening to read Miller et al's whiny little first person pieces where they bitch about how difficult their lives are because they practice their profession at the highest peak? They may be at the highest peak, but they don't practice at the highest ethical or professional levels. Anyone can write a punchy news story. These people aren't Hemingways. But it seems that not anyone can see the unseen, hear what is only a whisper in the wind, or put themselves on the line to tell people the truth. The current crop of non-listeners have proved this point by their complete unwillingness to have told the truth and reported the truth when it counted -- before Bush was elected. Instead, they all hired lawyers, hunkered down, kept reporting half truths, and lying to their editors and fellow journalists.
Can they be disbarred?
