behind the news

Of Phone Books and Reporters

Bloggers react to the Supreme Court's refusal to keep federal prosecutors away from the phone records of two reporters.
November 29, 2006

For the federal investigation that refuses to go away, proceedings continued to roil the press this week. On Tuesday, the Washington Post reportedon how the Supreme Court had recently refused a request from the New York Times to keep federal prosecutors from looking at phone records from two of its reporters, “part of a grand jury probe of an alleged leak in a terrorism-funding investigation…the court’s decision not to get involved opens the way for U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Chicago to review the telephone records of Times reporter Philip Shenon and former reporter Judith Miller.”

Today, the editorial department at the Times expresses moral outrage:

“This is a bad outcome for the press and for the public…The public will be ill served if this case reduces the willingness of officials to reveal important but sensitive information. The privilege granted to journalists to protect their sources needs to be bolstered with a strong federal shield law that would preserve the public interest in newsgathering and dissemination of information.”

Bloggers, though, disagreed on exactly how they would be served by the ruling. “I noted the NYTimes‘ attempt this weekend to seek protection from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for two accused blabbermouth reporters, whom the feds believe tipped off two Muslim charities fronting for terror,” writes Michelle Malkin. “Well, wonders never cease. The Times reports this afternoon that the court rebuffed the leak-dependent paper. Message to blabbermouths: You are not above the law, no matter how ostentatiously you wrap yourselves in the First Amendment.”

Chuck at Viva la Blog is similarly remorseless: “The Times have been involved in so many leaks which have harmed America’s war on terror. These leaks were not done because of the people’s right to know or the First Amendment rights, but they were leaked to harm a sitting president they did not like. Now, its time to pay the piper. Hopefully, the indictment of Judith Miller will be but the first of many who have knowingly printed classified documents…This is going to be a long war against people who want to kill us and our way of life. The New York Times seems to have chosen sides and now they are paying for it.” The liberal SocraticGadfly downplays the whole thing: “The snarky might rejoice in Judy Miller being in hot water again, but is this really that serious, or not? I think it’s of concern, but not earth-shattering. First, if you’re a source, use a pay phone. After the Jim McDermnott cell-phone recording issue of several years ago, a smart source already should NOT have been using a cell phone rather than a land line; ditto for a reporter. And, Big Media has no rights more absolute than other businesses; ditto for reporters vs. other people.”

Others got a bit carried away. “Once again, just as in the Dennis FitzSimons attempt to denigrate the Los Angeles Times, it is a Chicagoan, a foul Chicagoan, who is at the head of the pack,” writes Keith Reich, an embittered blogger from Los Angeles at Take Back the Times. “In this case, it is Patrick Fitzgerald, the Chicagoan who has been the special prosecutor in the “tempest in the teapot” persecution of leaks in the Valerie Plame case. Whatever happened to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares no law shall be used to stifle freedom of the press? The law is often bad news. I can never forget the professor in my Dartmouth days who warned us students, “Don’t forget, gentlemen. Everything the Nazis did was strictly legal, according to German law.”

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What many overlooked, though, is just how saucy those phone records might be. As a blogger masquerading under the alias of Patrick J. Fitzgerald writes: “Paris Hilton or Judy Miller..? I was just thinking to myself — Who has the more interesting phonebook? This is going to be HOT!”

Mark Boyer was a CJR intern.