Why isn't Robert Novak in jail? : NYT: Our Not-So-Free Press

[seraph]

Our Not-So-Free Press
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Paging China! Help us! Urge the U.S. government to respect freedom of the press!

It does sound topsy-turvy, doesn't it? Generally, it's China and Zimbabwe that are throwing journalists in prison, while the U.S. denounces the repression over there.

But now similar abuses are about to unfold within the United States, part of an alarming new pattern of assault on American freedom of the press. In the last few months, three different U.S. federal judges, each appointed by President Ronald Reagan, have found a total of eight journalists in contempt of court for refusing to reveal confidential sources, and the first of them may go to prison before the year is out. Some of the rest may be in prison by spring.

The first reporter likely to go to jail is Jim Taricani, a television reporter for the NBC station in Providence, R.I. Mr. Taricani obtained and broadcast, completely legally, a videotape of a city official as he accepted an envelope full of cash.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/opinion/10kris.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=