Under Arrest For Doing Your Job
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by user J Cunningham
San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, famous for their two-year-long investigative story on the BALCO steroids scandal and the tell-all best-seller Game of Shadows, were sentenced to as many as 18 months in prison for refusing to reveal their source to a federal grand jury Thursday.
The sentence will not take effect until after the reporters appeal to a circuit court.
Now, bear with me, because I'm about to ask a very "duh" question: what exactly did Williams and Fainaru-Wada do wrong? Is there some law I'm missing that states reporters must reveal their sources?
I realize leaking grand jury testimony--which their source did in providing the reporters with the information used in both the Chronicle and Game of Shadows--is illegal, but we need to remember the reporters weren't the leak. Williams and Fainaru-Wada did not break the law; their source did.
But who is this source? The reporters aren't saying, nor should they. I studied journalism in college, and one of the first things I was taught was that you never reveal your sources. This won't really matter to the beat writers who spend their lives covering games and practices, but for the investigative journalists among us, this credo is gold.
Think about it: if these reporters talk to keep out of jail (which I don't think they will), their careers are over. Once they're out of jail, they can never be journalists again, because by talking and revealing their source, they've compromised a trust between reporters and their sources.
But more than that, whistleblowers as a whole won't be so quick to blow said whistle anymore, because they won't be certain whether or not the reporters they'd be dealing with would keep their confidentiality. If a source can't trust a reporter, that reporter's not going to get any information, and he won't be able to do his job nearly as effectively.
So the reporters would be right to keep their mouths shut and probably end up behind bars for some really asanine reason. Ignoring the potential societal impact their investigation has had, let's examine the nature of a grand jury testimony.
There are no defense attorneys in the room during a grand jury hearing, nor is there any media. The only people in the room during a hearing are the prosecuter(s), the judge, a clerk, the 12 jurors, and whoever's testifying that day.
So here's a novel thought...maybe the leak came from one of them? Maybe one of those several people were Williams and Fainaru-Wada's source?
And if that's the case, why not interview and investigate them to find out the leak, as opposed to picking on two harmless reporters who, by the very nature of their profession, are sworn to never reveal who they get their information from?
Because we need a scapegoat, and these days...who better to be that scapegoat than the media?
Never mind how their investigation into BALCO opened our eyes into how deep and prevalent steroid use is in professional athletics. Forget how their stories and their book brought about the beginnings of positive change, in the form of tougher testing and potential legislation.
And let's ignore President George W. Bush commending these men on a job well done; they won't give up their source, so they must be a menace to society and therefore belong behind bars.
Please!
And, having read both their Chronicle pieces and Game of Shadows, most of the information is prevalent in both. If anything, the book merely collects all their Chronicle work and puts it all in one place, so whoever wanted to read it could have it all right then and there without having to sift through archives and the like.
The point is, though, that Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada did nothing wrong. They did not break the law, so as far as I'm concerned, they don't belong in prison. Whoever gave them their information does, however, even if I think going after the reporters to find out who the leak was is a pointless and fraudulent endeavor.
But to pick on the reporters? To me, that's the very definition of weak.
Date
Fri 09/22/06, 8:22 am EST
