Incarcerated for Morality

As some of you might have heard, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, the two journalists from the San Francisco Chronicle who authored Game of Shadows and broke wide open the Barry Bonds steroid case, have been sentenced to 18 months in prison at the encouragement of federal prosecuters for not revealing their sources and refusing to testify on the leaked grand jury testimony from Bonds and other elite athletes.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White who claimed that the pair were “not above the law”. While Williams and Fainaru-Wada plan to appeal the decision, they have repeatedly claimed that they will not reveal their sources, whether faced with prison time or not. Those federal agents hoping that incarceration will weaken their collective professional standards and willpower may be sorely disappointed.

The judge is not to blame here – he was simply abiding by the law. You can’t really ask more than that from someone in the justice system – their job is the interpret the law and operate accordingly – Judge White did exactly that.

However, what happens in this country, where often times journalists and the media watchdog are all that keep people in power honest, when those that are entrusted with maintaining an informed public and keeping the blade of public will sharp are handicapped from truly doing their jobs? If these two journalists revealed their sources, how badly would that hurt journalists across America? How could anyone feel confident in the verbal agreement of confidentiality with the press?

As we speak Congress is debating over a federal shield bill that can protect journalists in court from revealing their sources and testifying on account of their profession. Write your congressman. Write your senator. Help this bill along. If you think a free press is good for the future of this country, a bill protecting journalists priviledge in court is not only beneficiary, but imperative.

If this trend continues, where journalists are faced with a decision – give up your sources or go to jail – and they choose the former, one thing is for sure: we all lose. A democratic country without a free press is like a body without a head – it simply can not function.