Help Me! I Am Trapped In This Circle Of Logic!

Dana Linzer of the WaPo answered questions about sacked CIA officer Mary McCarthy in an online WaPo chat.  I am still spinning from this one:

Tokyo, Japan: Hello, Ms. Linzer-You said earlier "we don't know exactly what was said and to whom ". That isn't entirely correct. Dana Priest would know the nature of her contacts with McCarthy, and Dana Priest is a Washington Post reporter. Why can't she just tell us? After all, she seems to feel comfortable exposing secrets. What are the ethics on this?

Dafna Linzer: Hi, you're up late. The compact reporters enter into with sources for information that they wouldn't get otherwise is often one of confidentiality, especially on issues of national security. That is the pact that Dana entered into with her sources.

But... but... if Ms. McCarthy was *not* a source for Dana Priest, then there is no compact, yes?  Why can't Ms. Priest simply say, "Although I will never discuss my sources, I will occasionally discuss my non-sources; in this case, Mary McCarthy was not a source to me in my Pulitzer Prize winning secret prison reporting."

Well.  Just to engage in a bit of forward planning, and as a general disclaimer, let me stake out the following position as the official Just One Minute policy, and express my fervent hope that media figures will oblige me by adhering to it - if I am ever being pilloried in the press for having been a secret, illegal source, when in fact I was *not* a secret, illegal source, feel free to speak up on my behalf!

Don't feel like you are protecting me by letting me twist in the wind.  Thanks.

CAVEAT:  Yes, there may be some odd situation where eliminating me as a suspect points the finger definitively at someone else.  Or, aliens may abduct me!  In either case,  I exhort the media to report using their best judgment.

UPDATE:  In a Taranto-Maguire smackdown, I know where my money is!  Mr. Taranto makes it clear that my caveat was insufficieintly vague by writing this as a justification for a universal "no comment about my sources" policy:

If a reporter is willing to say "X   is not my source," then his refusal to say the same of Y fingers Y as the   source.

Well, yes.  The key is whether Ms. Priest can address this one odd trifecta - a Pulitzer Prize winning article, a fired employee, and credible allegations that the sacked employee was her source - without establishing a precedent that will put her, or other reporters subject to her example, on the spot.

I'm not a fan of "slippery slopes" arguments, and, like the Supremes in Bush v. Gore, Ms. Priese might declare a clarification of the McCarty situation to be non-precedential.  However, a consistent "no comment" is clearly safest.  A related point is that Ms. Priest's compact is arguably not with Ms. McCarthy specifically, but with all her sources.

MORE:  File this answer under "Do You Want The truth?  You Can't Handle The Truth!":

Arlington, Va.: I'm sure you'll get this one from several chatters, but why did The Post choose to leave out the political donations to Kerry and other democratic fundraisers made by Ms. McCarthy from the Saturday profile and follow-up articles? After your own Howard Kurtz blasted The Post over the weekend and in his Monday column [here] and chat, I was expecting some mention in either today's article or in a "clarification" from the editor. Don't your readers deserve ALL of the relevant facts?

Dafna Linzer: You're absolutely right - I'm getting a lot of questions about this. I disagree with Howie on this one. I think in his chat he said her campaign contributions go to motive but I don't know yet what she's done so I'm not sure how to assign motive here. Intelligence officers do not check their citizenship at the gates of Langley and like all government employees they are free to vote and make contributions - all of which is very much apart from their committment to government service and to fulfilling the policies of any president.

But we are living in partisan times and people want a partisan, political motive and explanation for everything. I don't think that's reasonable. Should we publish the campaign contributions of every person who testifies before Congress, every person who briefs a president, every person who writes a policy paper or plays any role in governmnt whatsoever or who is ever quoted in a story? We could, the information is public. But I don't want to confuse readers or issues by throwing that into the mix unless I understand its relevance. We have reported that she worked in Clinton's NSC and whom she has worked with and will continue to write about it.

Emphasis added.  Well, then - Ms. Linzer tells us that Ms. McCarthy worked on the NSC under Clinton.  Just why is that more clearly relevant than the fact that her ex-boss, Rand Beers, was a senior adviser to Kerry while she wrote big checks to the Kerry campaign?

Perhaps she could explain how the one fact goes into the mix while the other does not.

Comments

[larwyn]

Taranto's Best of the Web

has linked this thread in

today's email/column.

So be sparklingly witty!

[larwyn]

sad,
They have the exact quote on the Rove post thread ~ 2:30 thread time.
My info correct. Fitz needed to clarify some info since he last spoke to Rove.
Go to Rove thread - they are digging.

[larwyn]

sad,
They have the exact quote on the Rove post thread ~ 2:30 thread time.
My info correct. Fitz needed to clarify some info since he last spoke to Rove.
Go to Rove thread - they are digging.

[windansea]

I've asked him something but it will be deleted. He deletes my posts as fast as I post them now. ::grin:: And Other Tom. He took out 2 or 3 of his posts last night in the blink of an eye. He was conversing with me, sort of, but then decided to delete them. I'm not sure why. Something about the power it gave him. ::grin::

strange...last time I looked none of my posts were deleted but I am banned...maybe it was the sunglass comment..

[clarice]

I think we ought to tart up TM and pose him in front of the WH. Maybe he'd get more unadulterated swooning poster praise that way.

Besides, the Mongol horde thingy needs some graphics to underscore our theme.

[MayBee]

TM- don't give up! Maybe Taranto hasn't won yet!

Of course the Post is not going to reveal Priest's sources. But, should it mislead its readers to protect those sources? If McCarthy was one of Priest's sources, should it print her denials? By printing her denials is it tacitly bolstering her claim?

If McCarthy is telling the truth — if she was not one of Priest's sources — doesn't the paper have an obligation to clear her? I think it does, until I consider the long term consequences: If reporters were to routinely clear non-sources, they would end up exposing sources by not clearing them. (If McCarthy is innocent, I hope she remembers this high ideal when she finally gets through her ordeal which, at the end of the day, the Post could probably end immediately.)

[snip]

But principles come at a price. In this case it's a small one: as long as the Post remains central to the McCarthy case, it shouldn't cover it, or it should find a way to do so without misleading readers by withholding information (which strikes me as almost impossible).

In an online chat, Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer gave this reason for Priest's silnce:

The compact reporters enter into with sources for information that they wouldn't get otherwise is often one of confidentiality, especially on issues of national security. That is the pact that Dana entered into with her sources.

Of course, I love the last part because that's exactly how I see it.

source: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/zane/index.php?title=journalism_ethics&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1> Newsobserver via Media Blog

[MayBee]

I think we ought to tart up TM and pose him in front of the WH. Maybe he'd get more unadulterated swooning poster praise that way.

Yes!
Oh, I sooooo want to be the stylist for the shoot. I don't have a job with the cult yet, but I do feel I could be at least cult makeup artist.
TS could do the layout, although it might end up a tad too high quality for true Larry lovers to appreciate.

[clarice]

The job is yours Maybee.

[Syl]

That is the pact that Dana entered into with her sources.

Remember, it's possible neither Dana nor the Post atually KNOW if McCarthy passed on classified info. I mean, they most assuredly expect that she did. But they have no way of actually KNOWING which details were classified and which weren't from all the sources Dana used for her story.

Get my drift? There's no way the Post could possibly clear McCarthy.

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