Time: Stop trying to spin the Iraq war

[sabra]

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/25/klein.iraq.tm/

Stop trying to spin the Iraq war

"You're gonna protect me on this, right?" the magic words. When someone in Washington makes that request and a journalist agrees to the deal, a blood oath has been signed, no matter how scurrilous or trivial the information involved.

You don't break the oath or even hedge on it. You agree to stand outside the law respectfully, not "above" it, and to suffer the consequences. You go to jail to protect your source, if necessary. If you do not adhere to these tribal rules, other potential sources will surely notice and you will be considered unreliable.

It is not an elegant system--and yes, there are exceptions to the rules (on matters of imminent national or individual peril)--but it is a bedrock principle of the freest and fairest press in the world. And so I disagree with the decision of Norman Pearlstine, the editor-in-chief of Time Inc., to hand over our White House correspondent Matt Cooper's electronic notes and e-mails to the special prosecutor investigating who disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA officer.

To be fair, Pearlstine made his decision on this case only, not on the more general principle of journalistic confidentiality--and this was one tough case: an instance of confidentiality twisted to protect nonvital and vindictive information and also, perhaps, to provide cover for a criminal act. It is easy to understand why some people--perhaps even most--would have trouble supporting standard journalistic practice in such a situation.

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