JOURNALISTS TO BE JAILED?

The Washington Post reports today: “Journalists at the New York Times and Time magazine may be jailed if they continue to refuse to answer questions regarding the leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. Editor and Publisher has the latest on the Valerie Plame/Judith Miller case. William E. Jackson Jr, writes:

“It has been described as the greatest confrontation between the press and the government in a generation. What happens when the journalistic principle of protecting confidential sources clashes with the public interest in prosecuting a crime?

“The legal drama surrounding the Valerie Plame/CIA probe took another step toward its final act today when a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court ruled that Judith Miller of The New York Times and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper enjoyed no First Amendment privilege protecting the information sought by prosecutors.

“While the decision is appealed to the full Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Thomas F. Hogan could still send Cooper and Miller to jail at any time for contempt. But while the two reporters are now inextricably linked, the latter has much the weaker case, to such an extent that some other reporters and attorneys who have also been involved in the probe question the legal handling of the joint Cooper/Miller case.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000800586

“CBS STANDOFF”

That’s how Fox News described the situation at CBS where execs asked to resign in the Dan Rather “memogate scandal” are refusing to do so and threatening legal action. They want to question CBS President Les Moonves.

ABC INVESTIGATES: “The truth about UFOs”

MELANIE McFARLAND, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV critic was amused to find that ABC’s Peter Jennings has his own production company producing documentaries for ABC. What’s the next one on? Exposing the Bush Administration? Not hardly:

“Having spent more than two decades as the face the country’s second-highest-rated evening news broadcast, the Ontario-born Jennings has become synonymous with descriptors such as urbane, aristocratic and sophisticated. And although these adjectives are not always used in a positive sense — some viewers equate them to haughtiness — they’re undeniably apt.

“It probably will come as a surprise, then, to hear that urbane, sophisticated Jennings’ next documentary chases down the truth about UFOs. As in, flying saucers and little green men.

Seriously.”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/211976_tv15.html

McCain’s Media Reform

Senator John McCain is promoting media reform with a new “Localism in Broadcasting Reform Act of 2005″ The reason: he believes the media is exploiting political candidates. He cited some studies:

“One of the most startling statistics from the study is the ratio of political advertisements to candidate news stories aired during a half-hour news cast. Reduced news coverage led candidates to spend over $1.6 billion on television ads in 2004 to introduce themselves to voters, double the amount spent in 2000.

“Another interesting finding was that eight times more news coverage went to stories about accidental injuries than local elections. From what I can gather, if a local candidate wants to be on television, and cannot afford to advertise, his only hope may be to have a freak accident.

“Later today, I will introduce the ‘Localism in Broadcasting Reform Act of 2005,’ which would reduce the license term for broadcasters from eight years to three years, thereby requiring broadcasters to provide the FCC with information every three years on why their license should be renewed.”

http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=NewsCenter.ViewPressRelease&Content_id=1523

MEDIA SEX SCANDAL?

Usually I stay away from the scandal news but the Jeff Gannon affair that Tim Karr had a hand in exposing is irresistible because it brings together the media, the right, Bush and SEX. Doug Ireland tells the tell in his Direland blog:

“The scandal over ‘Jeff Gannon’ — the alias of the so-called reporter for the so-called Talon News Service (a hard-right propaganda outfit financed by a prominent GOP contributor) who was seeded among the bona fide White House correspondents to serve up Nerf-ball questions to George Bush and his press secretary, Scott McClellan — has taken a fascinating new turn.

“It now appears that ‘Gannon,’ a.k.a. James Guckert, was a male prostitute who extensively advertised his wares, for sale to gay men, on the ‘net. John Aravosis’ Americablog has all the details, with photo captures of “Gannon”/Guckert’s various websites that include pictures of the phony journalist in the buff displaying his erect equipment.

“Raw Story raises questions about whether ‘Gannon’/Guckert got his credentials to participate in White House press conferences thanks to some sort of gay relationship with McClellan, the Bush press secretary whose closet homosexuality has been long rumored.

“The sex lives of ‘Gannon’/Guckert and McClellan would not be relevant, had not both been spear-carriers in the vicious Republican campaign of gay-baiting demagogy. But if, as appears to be the case, both men are closet-case kapos whose twisted self-hate has transmogrified them into persecutors of those with same-sex hearts, they deserve to be exposed. And they join a raft of other prominent Republican political gay-baiters who are themselves gay: from powerful California Rep. David Dreier and disgraced paid-for-propaganda columnist/talk show host Armstrong Williams to new Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman.

“This latest example of the Bush White House’s sexual hypocrisy comes hard on the heels of Bush’s hate-preaching State of the Union address which singled out gays as targets for lies that encourage anti-gay violence. But not a single mainstream media outlet has had the guts to connect the dots and expose Bush’s double standard — one for the gay people he bashes, another for the closeted gays among his shock troops who help carry out this administration’s virulently anti-gay agenda. All this is a legitimate news story with enormous policy and political implications.

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/02/the_white_house.html