PressEthic

The New York Sun reported today that a Judge Claude Hilton, a Federal judge in Virginia, ordered the New York Times to reveal confidential sources related to a series of articles printed in 2001 about the anthrax scare.

According to the article, former army scientist Steven Hatfill filed a suite against the New York Times in 2004 claiming he was defamed by the five articles printed in 2001 written by Nicholas Kristoff. Kristoff named Hatfill in the fifth article in his series on the scare.

Following the ruling, Kristoff said:

We certainly believe that it's imperative not only for journalism but also for society as a whole that investigative reporting be allowed to use confidential sources. I understand that that is unlikely, but fundamentally, I care tremendously about being able to report and to offer people in government confidentiality for information and my fear is that, in general, in recent cases there been something of a shadow over our ability to do that.

Here is another case of a media outlet facing serious consequences if they do not reveal confidential sources. We have discussed this issue at great length in class. The question I have is what impact will yet another case have on the industry? Regardless of the outcome, this is another high profile case journalism as a profession will face. (Not to mention it is the second case the New York Times has dealt with in recent years.)

Does this type of scrutiny lead editors to lean even harder on journalists to never use anonymous sources in their work? Is it a good thing or is it helping to create an industry of paranoia?