jailing journos

I saw a very concerned, but obviously relieved, journalist on TV the other night. Mathew Cooper from Time magazine had an eleventh hour reprieve from taking his toothbrush to court for an anticipated jail sentence for contempt of court.

His New York Times colleague, Judith Miller, was not so lucky. She WAS jailed by a Federal judge in the US for refusing to divulge a source even though, as I understand it, she had not actually written a story about the case in question.

To try to put it simply it involves a scandal in which White House sources leaked information that finally led to the dangerous exposure of the identity of a  female CIA agent.

Her husband had written an article critical of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq.  As it turned out this week, the White House source was one of President Bush’s closest advisers, Karl Rove.  That was something the White House had vehemently denied in the past.

(It reminded me a bit of back in the 1970s when President Nixon was finally caught out lying over Watergate and his hapless Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, when challenged, said  “all previous answers are inoperative”).

I can understand how anguished Mathew Cooper must feel with Miller in jail. His magazine, Time, had already handed over confidential notes but he had held out.

Just before he was ordered to “ pack your toothbrush”  Miller told the court that, overnight, his source had contacted him and given him permission to testify.

It’s a lonely journalistic world that he was in. I know it from experience. And it sometimes comes down to being between a rock and a hard place.

Confidential sources are a journalist’s life. Trust is the most valuable word in our lexicon.

You sincerely pledge to a contact “I will not give you up”.  Look at Woodward and Bernstein. Could they have solved Watergate and brought down Nixon without Deep Throat and without his total trust in them protecting his identity?

On the other hand, we cannot claim to be above or beyond the law – although since the jailing of Judith Miller in the US there is a campaign to bring in new federal laws that would give journalists a legal right to protect their confidential sources.

I understand the Time journalist’s dilemma, probably more than most.  He stuck to his guns, stuck to his journalistic principles, until freed by his informant.

About twenty years ago I was involved in a messy custody battle in the Family Court. Not my family. The father had snatched his daughter whom he alleged was being sexually abused. I was the journalistic ham in the sandwich. I went on Bert Newton’s Nine Network nighttime programme, I guess in about 1984, and talked about the case. Newton challenged me to call the father on air. And I did.

The Family Court came after me. The judge demanded I hand over the phone number that I had used the night before and I refused. It had been given to me in confidence.

The judge told me , as I sat, under oath, in the witness box, that I should think long and hard over what I was doing (or not doing) and adjourned the case until next day. It was a real “bring your toothbrush” situation.

That night I received a phone call at home from the father on the run. He had seen my dilemma on the TV news. He told me that, in all conscience, he could not let me go to jail. He gave me permission to hand over the phone number “because I’ll be long gone anyway”.

I needed more. I needed his daughter back. I arranged to fly to Adelaide at 6 o’clock next morning to meet him and his daughter at the airport. I said “ let me take you in…. I’ll get you a fair hearing”.

I pre-recorded my opening comments for my morning programme on 3AW and flew to Adelaide. I waited at the airport for three hours. The father, with his young daughter, didn’t turn up. Maybe he thought it was a trap.

By then I had my own problems. I was due back in court in Melbourne to either provide a phone number or go to jail by 2.15p.m. I managed to put a Lear jet’s $5000 on my credit card and made it to court with about two minutes to spare.

Like Matthew Cooper from Time magazine I had been narrowly let off the hook.

But where does all this go?  I would rather go to jail than divulge a source. That’s our life, our lifeline, our business.

Once, at the old 3AW in LaTrobe Street, I had a call at 6a.m. to go to the Victoria Markets. A man in a car had some info for me. And I went. I did warn my producers to “call the coppers” if I wasn’t back in an hour.

It was there, on a cold, black, dangerously deserted morning, I got proof that Barlow and Chambers were guilty of heroin smuggling. My info was accurate. My informant had talked to Barlow in jail.  Despite that, Hawke and Hayden, defamed me in Parliament.

I know we are a strange breed. We attack. We destroy. But we put our heads up.

Right now, two Herald Sun journalists – Michael  Harvey and Gerard McManus – face jail if they refuse to identify sources. Refuse to identify a whistleblower.

I know where I stand. Come after me. Lock me up. I will never divulge a confidential source. Never. Protecting sources is, and must be, a journalist’s creed.

July 17, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005