journalism

James is in town, and we went to lunch today. We talked about random things here and there. We talked shop -- read: Daily Trojan politics. I am in office politics hell. The DT saved me, loved me, hated me, and it will be the death of me.

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Today, a judge sentenced a New York Times reporter (Judith Miller) to prison for not revealing her confidential source in the Bush administration's unrelenting quest to the end of this CIA leak. It is truly sad what the judge said when he sentenced Miller. You know, without journalism, without the First Amendment protections, without confidential sources who stay that way, the U.S. government, financial companies, so many other people and organizations will never to discovered to be corrupt, unsafe, neglegent. Let me submit for consideration the Seattle Times story about Boeing 767 with the rudder problem that kep crashing planes. The Albuquerque Journal that revealed the U.S. government, during World War II, was injecting supposed terminally ill people with plutonium just to see what would happen. Let us examine the entirety of Washington Post's coverage of the Watergate scandal. More recently, let us look at the LA Times' King/Drew series. Without journalists who are willing to keep their promises to their confidential sources, this country would be in shambles. It's too idealistic to say that the sole reason of journalism is to serve the public good, but it is true. Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted, someone said. We need strengthen the First Amendment and protect journalists with a federal shield law so that other Judith Millers or Matthew Coopers won't have to deal with this. All they're doing is their jobs. Let them.