By Jim Naureckas
Extra! (newsletter of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)
September/October 2005
Excerpt:
No reasonable person believes that a journalist’s right to protect their confidential sources is absolute. If a government official told a reporter — after obtaining a promise of strict confidentiality — that he was a serial killer planning to strike again, who would argue that the reporter should conceal that official’s identity — let alone defy a subpoena from a grand jury seeking evidence of the official’s crimes?
This is not to say that journalists aren’t often justified in keeping their sources secret. Government (and corporate) wrongdoing is frequently exposed by people without a legal right to reveal the incriminating information, who may face retribution if they are revealed as whistleblowers. Many times the public interest in learning about malfeasance outweighs the laws that protect official secrets.
In such instances, reporters are fully justified in concealing their sources — even if that means committing civil disobedience. But such a step requires justification: If someone breaks the law by giving information to a journalist, or reveals to a journalist that they have committed a crime, the journalist has to be able to argue that in that specific case, protecting the source’s identity serves the public more than bringing the source to trial.