Last week I posed the question "Should bloggers operate under the same immunity journalists do?"In retrospect, maybe a better question should be what rights are still sacred for journalists?
Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada are writers for the San Francisco Chronicle that recently published the book 'Game of Shadows'- an expose on the ramped use of steroids in major league baseball. Specifically on one of baseball's all time greats: Barry Bonds. When the book was first released, their source had given them definitive confirmation that Mr. Bonds had confessed to using steroids in a sworn deposition to a California Grand Jury, therefore proving a well know rumor that Mr. Bonds came of his extraordinary achievements in the game under false pretenses’. Later it was revealed that this Grad Jury testimony was actually leaked illegally to the authors and that they needed to surrender their source or face contempt of court charges.
While many contend that confidential sources have been utilized by the press since the beginning of its existence, others believe that by not revealing their confidential sources, Fainaru-Wada and Williams are, in effect, obstructing justice and should be punished accordingly. Luckily for the First Amendment they chose to be imprisoned rather than surrender their source. But I think the fact that a judge, in arguably the most liberal city in America, felt it his obligation to punish these members of the press instead of upholding their right to get information through protected sources. Does this mean that even if we wanted to hold bloggers to the same standards as journalists, we couldn't?
Why? Because the accountibilty paradigm is shifting. And it may be moving in the wrong direction.
