From David Sirota:
The Unspoken Legacy of the Plame Affair
In watching more of PBS Frontline's fantastic "News War" series - and specifically the section about the Valerie Plame affair - it struck me that the most troubling aspect of the entire case was the original decision by reporters to grant government sources anonymity.
As I and everyone else learns in journalism school, anonymity is supposed to be granted not on the basis of partisanship, sensational potential or anything else - it is supposed to be granted on the basis of the power relationship in question, and specifically, to the non-powerful figure versus the powerful figure.
The reason for this is because non-powerful figures (such as a corporate or government whistleblowers) need the anonymity in order to protect themselves from very real retribution from the powerful figures while the powerful figures (such as corporate CEOs or government officials) desire anonymity only to protect themselves from public scrutiny or law enforcement.
In the Plame affair, that basic paradigm was entirely reversed out of subservience to Establishment power - and both American journalism and democracy will pay dearly for it.
For the full post, go to:
http://www.workingforchange.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=67D04FC2-E0C3-F084-D86022AE8AD7D017
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