Tuesday, December 13, 2005

The ironies of source protection

A thoughtful piece in The Miami Herald by columnist Edward Wasserman, journalism professor at Washington and Lee University (and one-time colleague of mine at ALM), probes the ironies of source protection. Says he:
"The fact is that source protection is miles from being a paramount concern for journalists. Forget confidential informants for the moment. Apart from them, obligation to sources is a miserably neglected area of journalism ethics. The well-being of informants, and the ways that the reporting they contribute to may rebound on their lives, are things that journalists worry about rarely, if ever."

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