When to Give Up a Source

For journalists, confidential sources can be as essential as ink. That's why so many were surprised last week when Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time Inc., said he would reveal some confidential information about a big story. In a case involving TIME magazine White House correspondent Matthew Cooper, Pearlstine agreed to comply with a federal subpoena and surrender Cooper's notes and files relating to a story he had written that is part of an investigation into the disclosure of a CIA operative's identity. Time Inc. had appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but when the court declined last week to hear the case, Pearlstine made the decision he calls "the most difficult I have made in more than 36 years in the news business."

Many in the media world quickly criticized the move as a capitulation to government pressure that could scare off future sources. "I can't think of a time," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "when a news organization has done something like this." Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said Time Inc.'s decision signals that sources--and reporters--will now have to worry about media companies in addition to government prosecutors. "How will sources believe that journalists can keep their word?" he asked. But others pointed out that Time Inc. had run out of venues to fight the case. "Time Inc. fought this as hard as anyone could, with great lawyers, at great expense," said Newton Minow, former FCC chairman and professor emeritus at Northwestern University School of Law. "Once that happens, you have to obey the law."

The Cooper case evolved from an investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who set out to identify the unnamed Bush Administration sources cited by journalist Robert Novak in a July 2003 column that outed CIA officer Valerie Plame. Cooper subsequently wrote a piece for TIME's website saying that "some government officials" had provided him with information similar to what Novak had reported. Cooper suggested in his article that the sources were seeking to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who found evidence contradicting the Administration's prewar claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons. Judith Miller of the New York Times may have spoken to the same sources, though she didn't publish anything. (Nonetheless, she, like Cooper, could face jail time for declining to reveal her contacts.) The New York Times criticized Time Inc.'s decision to hand over material--publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said he was "deeply disappointed"--and said it backed Miller's refusal to testify. Cooper was stoically diplomatic: "There's honor in obeying an order backed by the Supreme Court. There's honor in civil disobedience. I wish Time Inc. had tried to hold out longer against handing over papers that identified my sources. But there's surely principle in both decisions."