Fox News is up in arms over a threatened jail sentence for reporter Jana Winter who is refusing to reveal her source for the notebook of "alleged Aurora shooter" James Holmes. (I put quotes around that because even his defense isn't claiming he wasn't the shooter there; just that he was insane.)
Anyway, the author of this article is right that Winter should not face time behind bars if she won't reveal her source…
From Woodward and Bernstein, who met with a mysterious source named Deep Throat in a garage, to a local zoning board official who is privy to municipal corruption in a small town, conversations between journalists and unnamed sources lead to investigative articles that shed light on the very things those in power would rather not reveal. Off the record conversations — or "leaks," as they may be less pleasantly called — are the bricks and mortar of what you read when you crack open a newspaper.
Absolutely right except that Bernstein never met with Deep Throat. But true, our news media cannot function if reporters can't guarantee anonymity to most kinds of sources. Still, I can't help but react to this…
Imagine if a judge had forced Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to reveal the identity of Deep Throat, who corroborated so much of their research into the Watergate scandal. Mark Felt, the associate director at the FBI, would likely never have risked his career, his family's safety and the opprobrium that came with notoriety to leak information to the Washington Post. The arc of history would therefore have been very different indeed.
That's also true but I seem to remember that when Mr. Felt's identity was finally revealed, a certain "alleged news channel" was flooded with its contributors saying that Felt was a coward for leaking what he leaked, that his motives were impure and I think the word "treason" was even employed. A lot of that opprobrium came from Fox News.