Journalist's Privilege

Mickey Kaus awards a "Nice try!" to Instapundit and Matt Welch, for their attempts to define a privilege that would give bloggers the same status as reporters. Kaus himself has proposed that a certain group of reporters be chosen by popular vote to be allowed to claim the reporter-source privilege. Nice try, Mickey.

It seems to me that there has to be a factual pattern that a court can apply. Sometimes reporters are exercising free speech and freedom of the press and sometimes they're just libelling people and carrying out personal vendetta's. Of course, anybody's opinions on matters of public debate shouldn't be iced by the threat of lawsuits. But what about publishing lies on the internet about someone who's not a public figure? I guess the question is whether there is any real damage involved. First rule: Consider the source.

Next, is there an apparent reason on the face of the report that would justify protecting the identity of a source? This is the whistleblower scenario. If the allegation is one of malfeasance that could subject the source to retaliation, fine--keep it out. If it's just some leaker using the reporter to play political games, he/she takes the chances that he may be unmasked if a court orders it.

It's really a question of groundrules. How many sources are really providing a public service by spilling things to reporters anonymously? Not all that many. Yes, the reporters might have to work harder to get stories, but what's wrong with that? They would be doing their jobs far better, i.e. provide accurate reporting, if they didn't have easy access to the thoughts of a few insiders who may or may not really know what's going on.