Quote:
|
Originally Posted by shakran
There was a breach of ethics, but not by those two reporters. It was actually conservative columnist Robert Novak who first wrote about this story. Once the other reporters hopped on board, the story was already out.
In other words, it wouldn't be unethical of me today to say that Plame is a CIA spook because it's already common knowledge. I can't hurt her by saying that anymore. When the two reporters in question wrote their story, the secret had already been told by Novak.
|
shakran, I agree with your statements.
It's been a while since I followed the story in all its detail, I'm actually not sure what role the reporters had in this incident anymore. Rather than flub names and etc., I didn't draw a distinction between the columnist and the reporters in my mind or post...my bad on not being specific.
I was using this specific example to move to a broader case--that the free press is certainly allowed to report anything it wants in my opinion, but it isn't always prudent do so in the ways in which it chooses (I'm trying to carefully word this because to just say that it isn't always prudent to do so would leave the door open to self-censorship).