I see you are in "denial." A WP reporter tries to "dance" our problem.
_______________________________
washingtonpost.com
The Ethics of Keeping You in the Dark
By Robert G. Kaiser
Sunday, October 5, 2003; Page B02
What journalistic ethics are involved when a senior government official asks a reporter if he or she would accept information on a confidential basis and then, under the protection of that confidentiality, commits what might be a federal felony? Is the reporter bound not to name the confidential source under any circumstances?
This question arises with the report last Sunday that half a dozen journalists were told by a senior administration official or officials that the wife of retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA. Revealingly, none of the reporters used the information in a story. But columnist Robert Novak did print the name and CIA affiliation of Valerie Plame in a column published in The Post on July 14. Novak says he got the name from a senior administration official.
When it became known that Plame was once a clandestine operative, and thus presumably covered by the 1982 federal law that makes it a crime to deliberately disclose the identity of a "covert agent" without authorization, the ingredients for our latest Washington brouhaha were in place. It took some weeks for the pot to boil, but it is boiling now.
And the unnamed half-dozen reporters find themselves uncomfortably near the hot water. This is a role reversal: Usually reporters try to find officials who have information about skulduggery or wrongdoing. In this case, it appears, the reporters have firsthand information the investigators may need to determine whether any crime occurred. But it also appears that those who know what happened are in an ethical bind.
I say "it appears," because no one but the reporters knows for certain. I don't know who all six are, or even if there are only six. Nor do I know crucial details of their dealings with the official or officials. But their silence suggests strongly that they feel bound by some confidentiality arrangement.
This is one of several conclusions that seem logical from the few known facts. If these reporters had made no agreement, by now they likely would have revealed with whom they spoke and what was said. I would bet that each reporter conducted the conversations "on background," the most popular of the arcane ground rules that Washington journalists and officials use to govern their discussions.
In modern Washington, particularly in the executive branch, officials are usually unwilling to talk to reporters "on the record." Many of them are under standing orders from their bosses never to do so. "On background," the favored alternative, allows officials to provide their views or information anonymously. Used properly, the "background" device gives reporters -- and ultimately their readers, listeners or viewers -- a chance to learn things they otherwise wouldn't know. Used improperly, it permits officials to lead reporters into writing a misleading account -- what we call spin.
Reporters ought not grant anonymity too easily, but their willingness to do so is not hard to understand. They don't see much value in badgering reluctant sources to speak on the record. It's easier to go along, as shown by the number of "senior administration officials" quoted in The Post and elsewhere.
One of these "senior administration officials" helped bring the Plame story to full boil. This official told Mike Allen and Dana Priest of The Post that two other unnamed senior officials were responsible for providing the identity of Wilson's wife to those half a dozen reporters. According to this source, his (or her) colleagues passed on this information "purely and simply for revenge" after Wilson publicly revealed he had gone to Niger last year at the CIA's request and had filed a report debunking the idea that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from that country. Why was one senior administration official implicating others? Sorry, Allen and Priest can't say -- they promised to protect the identity of their source. We find ourselves in this situation far too often.
Which brings us back to the ethical question: If a government official obtains a promise of confidentiality and discloses something like Valerie Plame's name and job, does that violate the implicit understanding between source and journalist? Reporters often grant anonymity before they know what a source might say. This time, however, the official(s) may have abused the rituals of journalism and violated the law -- perhaps inadvertently -- in the zeal to fire back at Wilson. Therefore, should the reporters come forward and say what they know?
The question is hard to answer because we don't know the circumstances of the original conversations. But if a senior official initiated contact, obtained a pledge of confidentiality and sought to plant the name of Wilson's wife and her status with the CIA, I'd argue it was time to blow the whistle.
But other journalists would disagree with me. So would our lawyers, who generally insist that we must live up to our pledges of anonymity, because picking and choosing between "honest" and "dishonest" sources would ultimately harm the free flow of information. In this view, if our sources don't have total confidence in our promises of confidentiality, they will dry up.
Which is probably why we don't know the names of the official or officials who disclosed information about Plame.
But now there's a criminal inquiry. Theoretically, this could change the situation. In a 1972 decision that no journalist likes, Branzburg v. Hayes, the Supreme Court concluded that "the first amendment does not relieve a newspaper reporter of the obligation that all citizens have to respond to a grand jury subpoena and answer questions relevant to a criminal investigation."
But no administration has ever invoked the Branzburg decision in pursuing a leak investigation. No doubt they have shied away from this partly to avoid provoking America's news organizations. Personally, I doubt that John Ashcroft's Justice Department will try to subpoena the reporters and invoke Branzburg now. But it could.
Another caution: Those who are hoping this episode will land some official in jail should probably take a cold shower. The law against identifying covert agents is difficult to break. Only an official who has legal access to known classified information about a covert agent, and who knows that the government has taken affirmative measures to hide the agent's identity, has violated the law.
That determination, however, can be made only after examining the evidence. If the reporters keep what they know to themselves, then the only witnesses are the very people under investigation -- those unnamed senior administration officials.
That's why this is so tricky, and so uncomfortable. Journalists believe that we grant anonymity in our quest to get a better understanding about what's going on. Now, that anonymity is keeping you from knowing what really happened here.
Author's e-mail:
robertgkaiser@yahoo.com
Robert Kaiser, associate editor of The Post, is co-author of "The News About the News: American Journalism in Peril" (Vintage).
washingtonpost.com |
