The Nation's Pulse / Reporters in the Stammer

...Jimmy Carter...

...But that privilege need not and should not be as sweeping as the media apparently think, and more generally, their arrogance on this score could use some tempering...

...The answer, of course, is that for all its self-righteous posturing, the press does in fact have a special role to play in our public life, and one whicn may indeed require special protection to be effectively performed...

...The press rightly cherishes its status as a private and independent institution, albeit one with a special function to perform in our Republic...

...Louis named Russell Byers who was reported to have claimed, in 1973, that two 26 The American Spectator October 1978...

...Conversely, as in the grand jury situation or police searches of news offices, the public's interest in its own security and in the prevention and punishment of crime may, in certain circumstances, appear more important than the confidentiality of a reporter's sources...

...That the White House—or is it the Drug Enforcement Administration ?—has in hand a list of 37 Washington reporters who use cocaine...

...Why, one might ask, should the press not be subject to the same requirements, protected by no more than the traditional safeguards that apply to all members of society...

...What's going to happen in the Massachusetts Senate race...

...Reporters in the Slammer closure by journalists of information they consider confidential...

...Probably...

...and, well, it is interesting...

...was on board, going around with stopwatches, checking departure times, luggage racks, and other minutiae...

...This story was "based on reporting" by no fewer than three of the Times' reporters, Nicholas Horrock, Anthony Marro, and Wendell Rawls, Jr...

...Is John Warner going to blow it in Virginia...

...all forgotten and unimportant today, and doubtless never possessing the importance with which they were invested at the time...

...As the Metro-liner heaved and swayed precariously from Pennsylvania Station into New Jersey, I decided that there really must be some deception inherent in politics that works to convince one, day in, day out, that the trivial is crucial, the ephemeral lasting...

...I mean, have you heard the latest about the Peter Bourne story...

...Similarly, the doctrine of executive privilege and confidentiality, The American Spectator October 1978 25 however Mr...

...Farber case fairly typifies the conflict between the courts and the media over journalistic confidentiality...

...After all, individual citizens are subject to police search of their homes if a warrant is obtained, and are routinely compelled to testify before grand juries about matters which they deem confidential...

...The virtues of the First Amendment are given heavy emphasis in every editorial on this topic...

...There I spotted an acquaintance, a political consultant named Mark Shields...

...Not unreasonably, he would like to take a look at that material...

...All of which made the prospect of Washington seem even more tedious...

...Nixon may be thought to have abused it, involves issues that go to the heart of effective functioning of the most important public office in our system...

...And, as in all situations where the perceived self-interest of the press itself is involved, the fact that the media will in large part control public discourse on their own fate hardly augments the chances for arriving at a fair and reasonable solution...

...The questions involved are extraordinarily difficult to answer, mainly because most of the suggested remedies to the problem seem fraught with potential for abuse...

...Without absolute confidentiality, it is argued, the media's ability to perform its tasks will be seriously and perhaps irreparably damaged...

...The impression left by such a story is inevitably that there has been some "significant breakthrough" in the case...

...Being subjected to similar rules, reflecting a special level of protection commensurate with the importance of the press to a free society, would hardly destroy the field of journalism, just as such procedures appear not to have destroyed the legal profession or permanently crippled the Presidency...

...Though varying in tone from the thoughtful to the well-nigh hysterical, commentary throughout the media has applauded defiance of court orders to disclose information and deplored those who would force a reporter to choose between going to jail for contempt and violating his professional obligations as a journalist...

...Yet the three major networks constitute a concentration of influence—characterized by remarkable homogeneity in outlook—unrivaled in this country...

...Chester Arthur...

...I doubt that I will ever see, however, an editorial in my local newspaper suggesting that a reporter claiming journalistic privilege might have something to hide...

...Though it has come into focus primarily in the last decade or so, this controversy has been sharply, frequently, and at times bitterly joined, usually in a clash between the press and the judiciary...

...THE NATION'S PULSE by Peter J. Rusthoven The jailing of New York Times reporter Myron Farber for contempt of court, and the Supreme Court's recent decision permitting the police to search news offices if they obtain a warrant, have raised yet again the issue of whether and to what extent the media are entitled to preserve the confidentiality of their sources and other investigative material...

...CAPITOL IDEAS by Tom Bethell Dope in the White House Returning from New York to Washington can be a dispiriting experience, especially in the monsoon season...

...Now you know why the press so abruptly lost interest in the intriguing question of who, precisely, uses marijuana and cocaine among the White House staff...

...The reaction of the press to the Farber case and similar incidents has been predictable and virtually uniform...

...Yes, it's hard to ignore the allure of political gossip...

...It seems there has been an unofficial "nonaggression pact" between media and government on this subject...

...Reading it through, however, and reading two other follow-up stories by the same team in the next week, it became clearer and clearer that the Timesmen had essentially been "conned"—almost literally in this instance...

...This, as he said, seemed to be a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, in view of the frenzied way the train was jumping about...

...If one happens to be on trial for murder, like the gentleman in New Jersey, the importance of a fair trial at which all evidence favorable to the accused may be introduced —a concept which also finds sanction in the Constitution—will likely seem considerably more compelling than the self-imposed standards of professional journalists...

...He contends that Farber, while doing investigative reporting work, has obtained information that would be favorable to his defense...

...There is room in our system for a qualified privilege of journalistic confidentiality, and none of us would endorse any form of governmental supervision or censorship...

...Contrary to so many in the media, however, I believe a question remains as to where one should draw the line...

...Arthur Chester...

...No doubt it would be possible, although bad for morale, to go through old newspapers in the Library of Congress and read the dispatches of the reporters in Chester Arthur's day, seeing them agonize their way from one "crisis" to the next...

...Similarly, while all the evidence is not yet in, in camera screening by the courts of arguably sensitive material seemed to work fairly well when claims of executive privilege were advanced in the Watergate trials...

...A man in New Jersey is on trial for murder...

...The Washington atmospherics may be sodden, but the mental climate is leaden...

...It is clear that Carter has been consider-ably damaged by these revelations...

...Moreover, the media seem to view themselves as exempt from many of the criticisms and arguments they regularly and sometimes gleefully direct at others...

...Particularly intriguing was the vast story about the Martin Luther King assassination that came out at the end of July in the New York Times, starting off with two columns on the front page and then covering most of an inside page...

...Michael Gartner, editor of the Des Moines Register & Tribune, aptly points out in an August article in the Wall Street Journal that "editors and reporters know far more than they're willing to print—and much of what they absolutely refuse to print is about their own activities...

...That special function dictates a need for special protection, but does not justify the claim for total exemption from the obligations, imposed both on other private institutions and on ordinary citizens, that so many in the media currently advance...

...Moreover, the door will then be open to government abuse of the sort envisioned in fiction by George Orwell...

...One will find little sympathy among network news commentators for the major automobile manufacturers, and frequent suggestions are made that such a concentration of power in the hands of a few should perhaps not be countenanced...

...But the bulk of the press had little trouble dismissing such contentions as so much dodge and subterfuge...

...He pointed out that an investigative squad from the Interstate Commerce Commission Tom Bethell is Washington editor of Harper's and contributing editor of the Washington Monthly...

...It will be interesting indeed to see if the media prove to be sufficiently non-monolithic to break this pact...

...With the exception of a few newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the press will scarcely concede that there is any question as to how the issue should be resolved, much less a difficult one...

...claiming that to do so would undermine his credibility and effectiveness as a reporter and violate his professional standards...

...The countervailing considerations, however, are in fact fairly easy to perceive...

...Farber, backed up by his employer, refuses to produce his notes...

...before nodding off to that refrain I stood up to find the refreshment car...

...The judge, apparently attempting to effect some sort of compromise, orders that the notes be turned over to him for a preliminary review to determine if they indeed contain information relevant to the murder trial...

...Have you heard the latest about Peter Bourne...

...Yet on a sufficient showing of necessity and hardship, a litigant may secure from a court access to the confidential work of an adverse attorney...

...Farber and the Times persist in their refusal, Farber is jailed and the paper fined for contempt of court, and the lawyers are on their way to the Supreme Court...

...The attorney-client privilege, for example, has far deeper roots in our legal heritage than the concept of "freedom of the press" as it is now understood...

...The big problem with Jimmy and Rosalynn, I keep thinking, is that they are so anxious to prove they are sophisticates...

...If only they were content to be rednecks...

...I put up token resistance at first, recalling the trivia of Chester Arthur, but the up-to-date gossipy details of politics act like a drug in the bloodstream...

...Being something of an assassinologist (which can be a full-time occupation in America), I have been following with interest the antics of the House Assassinations Committee and the various stories that have emanated from their offices...

...The story concerned a man in St...

...Ironically, these events take place in one of the states which, in response to the Supreme Court's 1972 decision holding that reporters could be compelled to testify before grand juries in criminal investigations, had enacted a supposedly "absolute" shield law to prohibit forced disPeter J. Rusthoven is an Indianapolis attorney...

...It is both true and significant that there is no effective watchdog on the press itself...

...The press, never reticent about its value as a watchdog of freedom and its vital role in the preservation of the Republic, waxes especially rhetorical on such matters when journalistic confidentiality is at stake...

...It wasn't long before we began talking about politics...

...You will wait in vain, however, to hear Walter Cronkite express serious reservations about that problem...