Challenge to the Cleveland Plain Dealer
I have read with interest the Cleveland Plain Dealer's admission that it is spiking two stories of "profound importance" due to the fact that the documents were leaked illegally. The point of this is to illustrate the supposed chilling effect of having Judith Miller in jail.
Well, I have a simple solution: have your contacts leak the documents to me. I am a freelance writer who has done stories for the Houston Press, Houston Chronicle, Tucson Citizen, Skeptic, Dissent and others. Having worked as an editor at a New Times publication, I have contacts at our sister publication the Cleveland Scene who I'm sure would have an interest in publishing something like this. (For a lengthier resume, go here.)
If no publication is brave enough to run this story, I will publish the story online free of charge. I have no problem donating my time on something of this importance, and I will gladly accept the legal risks involved.
Fellow journalists far braver than me are risking their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa to inform the public, and your contacts are obviously willing to take great risks to their career to get the information out. One need only muster a fraction of that courage to publish this story. Since you won't be running this story, you have to take no risk at all in passing along the information to me. You clearly think this is something your readers should know. if you're unable to inform them, give it to someone who will.
As per Jonathan Alter (whom I just heard on some Air America show): the leaker could just publish the documents him-or-herself, on the internet, anonymously, and link to it in the comment areas of major weblogs and the like. Then a newspaper reporting on the documents wouldn't have to risk legal action; they're not 'breaking the story', exactly, and there's no legal justification to assume the reporter knows the name of the source.
But in my mind, it's all a bunk issue - the Plain Dealer is being disingenuous, plain and simple. If the report is as newsworthy as they claim, then the Miller precedent probably doesn't apply to them (unless their source is trying to smear a whistleblower) and they're perfectly safe from legal action. So why the holdup?
Call me a cynic, but I think they're probably overblowing the importance of the stories they're sitting on, making themselves out to be victims in order to create political momentum for more protective shield laws. Either that, or the corporate wing of the newsroom has taken it upon themselves to squelch the stories, for whatever murky reason. The Miller case is just a convenient fig leaf for their real motivations.
But hey, Memekiller, I appreciate your gesture. I hope someone takes you up on it.
July 9, 2005 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know they won't take me up on it. The whole point is to call them pussies.
July 10, 2005 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink