Questionable Advocacy of Press Freedom

Re Lawyer Says He Gave Convicted Reporter Videotape in Corruption Inquiry, by Katie Zezima, New York Times, December 2, 2004:

This new Times news article about the TV journalist facing jail for refusing to identify who gave him an undercover FBI videotape, like the earlier article on the subject (see On jailing reporters: "Balance" without insight), fails to address whether the broadcast of the tape served the public interest in any way.

This neglect of the central issue leaves readers, again, unable to assess whether the prosecution of the journalist is justified, despite indignant denunciations of the government's action in the Times's editorial pages.

The new article follows a new development: a lawyer, Joseph Bevilacqua Jr., has come forward to say he provided the tape to the reporter.

Bevilacqua was representing one of the defendants, a city official who was later convicted of corruption. Bevilacqua apparently obtained the tape through legal discovery. (At one point he stopped representing the official, and it was afterwards that he provided the tape to the reporter.)

The article fails to address Bevilacqua's motive. His action was presumably illegal (and the article implies this). And the broadcast of the tape seems unlikely to have been helpful to his client. So it seems to the reader that his motive was probably a money payoff by the TV station.

Bevilacqua came forward sometime in November after learning he would be subpoenaed in the leak investigation. He'd previously denied being the source under oath. His current explanation for not coming forward sooner is bizarre: he says it was because he'd promised the reporter not to reveal himself as the source. He also says he urged the reporter to disclose his (Bevilacqua's) identity "several times ... until the morning of [the reporter's] conviction," but that the reporter urged him to "maintain his silence."

The reporter's version is more plausible: "Mr. Bevilacqua repeatedly insisted that I keep his name in confidence. Mr. Bevilacqua's allegations that it was not necessary for me to keep his confidence are simply untrue."

The Times has portrayed this issue as a government assault against the free press. But as far as readers can make out from the Times's deficient reports, there's nothing noble about the reporter's actions. He may have compromised an FBI investigation, or FBI undercover methods; it seems he never exposed a crime that was not going to be prosecuted anyway by the government; it seems he wasn't serving the public interest in any way, but only his station's ratings and his own career; and it seems he knowingly conspired with a crooked lawyer who was violating the law and professional ethics for some quick cash.

I hate to say this, but I think the New York Times is losing it.

A new editorial today, Showdown for Press Freedom, again lambastes the government for prosecuting journalists who refuse to identify sources who illegally divulge confidential information:

The First Amendment suffered a blow in October when a federal trial judge sentenced two reporters to prison for up to 18 months each for refusing to comply with subpoenas to reveal their confidential sources before a federal grand jury....

This challenge to press freedoms comes courtesy of Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States attorney and special prosecutor charged with investigating accusations that the Bush administration illegally leaked the name of a covert Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame, to the columnist Robert Novak in order to punish her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, for criticizing Iraq policy. Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry has evolved into a major assault on the confidential relationship between journalists and their sources, which was of critical importance in exposing the very abuse of governmental power that prompted Mr. Fitzgerald's involvement in the first place. [Emphasis supplied.]

It's true that the press's traditionally confidential relationship to sources is what led to exposure of the abuse of governmental power. But what seems to have escaped the Times's notice is that the exposure was the abuse.

It's as if the Times were congratulating itself for exposing a murder conspiracy by carrying out a bad guy's instructions to shoot someone.

The world learned that someone had illegally exposed a covert CIA operative because the press itself carried out the exposure by publishing the CIA operative's name.

The Times editorial writers evidently learned in journalism school that exposing government abuses is a great and noble thing. But there's an important exception: not when the exposure itself is what the abuse consists of.

Joseph Wilson, having investigated suspicions that Saddam Hussein had sought to obtain uranium from Niger, reported his conclusion in early 2002 that the suspicions were groundless. President Bush nonetheless continued repeating the charge against Saddam in order to build the case for invading Iraq. Wilson later published an op-ed piece in the Times, What I Didn't Find in Africa, observing that "[if my conclusion] was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses."

The Times was less committed to "exposing" government abuses in that far graver case. The Times was among the culprits who supported the "false pretenses" that led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq (see my Journalistic violations contribute to national disaster).

Wilson did what the Times should have done and failed to do. He challenged the Bush administration's lies -- and someone retaliated illegally. What should be exposed now is who did it. The Times should be more mindful of its recent failures and quit obstructing the investigation.

Related articles:

• First Amendment Desecrated by New York Times.

• Yearning for Mechanical Rule.