Media's Right of Confidentiality Under Attack

Recently the House overwhelmingly authorized a bill that would continue to allow reporters to be immune from disclosing their sources. …Wait for it…and the Bush administration threatened a veto.

To nearly all investigative reporters, this bill is imperative when performing their craft to the best of their abilities. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were able to rake up the facts of the Watergate scandal by using a trusted source—named Deepthroat—who would only speak on the record if his name were not published.

The White House says that this bill will potentially allow publications to leak classified information, which in turn might pose a threat to our national security. Corruption among the Iraqi government was investigated by an American task force, yet the results remain classified by the administration. This information, among many other items that are classified by the administration, do not pose a threat to our national security, they are merely a potential black eye on an administration that has had many.

To be fair, administrations of the past tried to block periodicals from publishing material that they felt would be harmful to the national security; the Johnson administration attempted to forestall the publication of a story that described many more Vietnam casualties than were originally thought. The Supreme Court allowed the story to run, as the public had a right to know.

It is absolutely essential to any strong democracy for the freedom of the press to be taken seriously and the rights belonging to the press to be protected. It is ironic that the same leaders who espouse freedom as their main talking point would be so quick to throw a wet blanket onto the largest spark plug of information for the American people.

To this day, investigating stories often involves uncovering the truth, which to those in power may be a tad unflattering. It is sad to see only a few main publications willing to do the dirty work necessary to expose essential information to the public, it is even sadder to see those in power so willing to silence them.