Robert Novak named a source three years ago - NY TIMES op-ed.

[Eric J in MN]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/06/opinion/06OVER.html

Yes, it is in the public interest to protect journalists from being required to name their sources in the courtroom. But it is also in the public interest for journalists to speak out against ethical lapses in their craft. Far from undermining the principle of confidentiality, our acknowledgment that protecting sources can be used for ill as well as for good can bolster it, reassuring a public that often wonders who is watching the watchdog.

In this case, then, journalists should call upon Mr. Novak to acknowledge his abuse of confidentiality and reveal his sources himself ? thereby keeping the control of confidentiality in journalistic hands rather than in those of the legal system. Mr. Novak has in the past shown a willingness to identify sources who turn out to be lawbreakers: three years ago he revealed that he had taken information from Robert Hanssen, the Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who spied for the Soviet Union. He needed to divulge his connection to Mr. Hanssen, he wrote, "in order to be honest to my readers."

The same ethic holds true in this case. And any journalists who step out of line to call for such an accounting in the Novak-Wilson affair would be protecting both the principle of confidentiality and the practice of journalism in the public interest.

Geneva Overholser is a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She is a former editor of The Des Moines Register, ombudsman of The Washington Post and member of The New York Times editorial board.
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In the Ambassador Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame case, the leaker damaged national security, and discouraged public whistleblowing from people like Joseph Wilson. The latter undermines the flow of information not-naming sources is supposed to enhance.

Given that Robert Novak made an exception three years ago, and the totality of the Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame case, this is no time for absolutism with regard to naming sources.



national security was damaged

[MinnFats]

1. Novak is an embarrassment to the profession...

...
he should be sent to spend eternity writing obits in Wyoming (NOT the beautiful part).

[Vitruvius]

2. Naah - Novak should be writing for a prison newspaper.

As an inmate.

[Manix]

3. ..he is a White House errand boy.......he'll never talk..

nt

[jbfam4]

4. Judge people by the company they keep

Hanssen and cheney's group