“For all the mistakes that we journalists make at times, try running a functioning democracy without us.”
This is the battle cry from Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for The New York Times, shortly after a ruling by a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., last week that she and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine should be jailed for contempt of court for not disclosing their sources. And what a true battle for First Amendment rights this landmark case has become.
In July 2003, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote that senior Bush administration officials tipped him off about a possible case of nepotistic interests by Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to Iraq, in an opinion article Wilson wrote in the Times that criticized President Bush about comments he made on Africa weapons trade with Iraq. In this, Novak disclosed that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction.
This fall, Miller, who did some reporting on the issue but did not write an article, and Cooper, who helped write a Time magazine online article questioning the reasons behind the disclosure of Plame’s identity, were held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose their sources. Miller and Cooper are now seeking a full appeals court, and if that fails, will make a request that the U.S. Supreme Court hear the case.
Novak is still writing columns for the Chicago Sun-Times, and said on CNN’s “Crossfire” in October 2003, “Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. There is no great crime here.” He claimed that calls were made to a half-dozen reporters by White House officials, but that he was the only one who published the information. In a column published at the time those comments were made, Novak said Plame’s
identity wasn’t much of a secret anyway.
Miller and Cooper plan to fight the panel’s ruling as far as they can, and we commend them on this. Echoing what Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc., told The New York Times last week, we feel it is of critical importance to protect confidential sources. A lack of confidentiality between reporter and source undermines attempts for whistle blowers to speak out against an institution or organization, and it ultimately destroys the judgment process
behind what should and should not be printed.
Miller and Cooper both expressed disappointment about the ruling, and last week, Miller showed particular concern for the
power of free speech.
“A case like mine is a warning to people not to talk because the government will come after you, and that’s what we’re fighting,” she told The New York Times.
It is a sad day for journalists and activists and whoever else considers free speech a cornerstone in the U.S. Constitution when our courts rule against the power of news organizations to maintain relationships with their sources. The minute we give any entity the power to compromise those relationships we say goodbye to the sanctity of the First Amendment and any true form of checks and balances in this country.

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