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Show The Salt Lake Tribune, Monday, February i 12, 1973 Question of Newspaper Freedom f Strength of the American Press Is Its Diversity, Not Its Conformity By A. M. Rosenthal The Lockhorm Managing Editor The New York Times "NEVER The papers show clearly that one administration after another carried itself and the country into a constantly escalating series of wars. A politi- - Second of Two cal war against the Geneva accords of 1954, a counterinsurgency war, a land war, an air war, a mass land war, the greatest bombing war in history. And the Pentagon Papers show that each step was taken because the government knew the preceding step had failed. Yet the public never knew that each step had failed. Full Truth But the papers show no indication at all that the various governments of the United States ever even seriously considered telling the public the full truth, not even as an academic matter. If the governments of the day had been more open, is it not at least conceivable that history might have changed, that public attitudes, fears and desires might have legitimately been taken into account and policy therefore modified? old. The fuss ubout the Pentagon Papers theoretically inspired the government to take a new and more lenient look at its classification system. It may be new but the leniency is hard to discern. An important War II hispart of is still locked up, even tory though the participants may be dead or out of power. Keeping them hidden serves only the convenience or prestige of governments in general. post-Worl- d Whatever truth the public came to know about Vietnam came largely from the press. these pieces of informaand insights provided by the presa were constantly being attacked and denied by But tion Still Under Lock Most Americans, I assume, would agree that it is wrong and dangerous for our governments to conceal histone inrecent formation, although not just Mr governments have been doing Nixon's exactly that. That's the easy part to agree with Prolonged War But what about ongoing matters, really current matters? Are we to say that it's OK. to tell Amencans wha happened 15 years ago that led" to a prolonged might have war but not exactly why the . war was prolonged after "peace at hand? Myself, I would a lot rather know w hat may affect the country today and tomorrow than what was i of news government added to secrecy. ' falsification We have now a government that did not invent secrecy as a way of life but has happily adopted and built upon it. It was the first government to impose prior restraint upon the press and although it failed in the end to suppress the papers, it established a precedent with which we will It live in danger forever. seems to be arguing, in the Ellsberg-Russcase, that the government owns information and that distributing it against government wishes can be a crime o Reveal Souices has used the power It of subpoena to try to force new to reveal their sources of confidential information. an attempt to damage the press by making it serve arm of as an investigative government. It has wrapped the entire diplomatic process up in the executive privilege by making a presidential assistant rather than the secretary of state responsible, thus cutting off the investigations of the Congress. At the very least, the price of government secrecy in some matters should be credibility and openness m most. The government has not paid the price. The public was misled about our attitude toward not the announced India neutrality but the private tilt. The public still does not know the full story about the Lavelle case and how high it reached, and rarely in American history has an administration so completely turned off and coldly deinformation clined a sense of accountability on an issue of peace or war as in the days between "peace at hand and the renewed bombi lg of Hanoi. -- ( ly indispensable tool in getting news that goes beyond government handouts. And until recently it was taken for granted that the reporter could guarantee confidentiality. Now he can do so only if he promises himself and his sources as a matter o' journalistic ethics that he will go to jail rather than destroy the confidentiality that is vital to the free press. Most reporters and editors believe they are willing to go to jail if need be. . Some have gone to jail and for refusal to others may identify sources or reveal information given in confidence. But perhaps our society is asking too much, not simply of the reporter and editor but whether in of the dissident the police department or State Department. We now ask the dissident to trust the newspaperman to defy the courts and go to jail rather than to break faith Peace was achieved, but the administration has tried with some effectiveness the public from whether it really been achieved at months earlier. it. The Pentagon Papers. More than else, they anything showed how deeply secrecy had become a pattern of living in our government, simply accepted as an assumption as so many other assumptions were accepted. THE POOR I significant yesterday and last year. Here, too, an obsessiveness about secrecy has built up through several recent administrations. It has become a way of life, an end in itself, a virtue. And like all obsessions, it sometimes so seizes its victims that they do not even know they are suffering from In any case, that is not the heart issue. Instead of keeping as little secret for as short a time as possible, our recent governments have adopted an attitude of keeping as much as possible secret for as long as possible. It is not just secrecy that is the issue but the attitude toward it. Secrecy has become something not to be avoided whenever possible and that strikes me as a violation of the trust imposed in government by the people. The simplest way to keep things secret is to mark them secret and then lock them away and impose punishment upon any who reveal them to the public. There are thousands of people in all branches of government authorized to lock whatever they wish away from the public, and millions of documents lie hidden, some of them decades The whole classification policy is designed at least as much to keep information from the Amencan public as from potential enemies and this has been acknowledged by many government officials, Arthur present past and Schlesinger in a recent speech said that the "secrecy system has become much less a means by which government protects national security than a means by which government safeguards its reputation, dissembles its purposes, bunes its mistakes, manipulates its citizens, maximizes its power and corrupts itself. And all this is done not by Congressional or public decision but simply by administrative fiat. FtXEP HAIRPIN.' MINC?, LEROY. WITH A Not Issue Korean war, the Bay of Pigs, what Khrushchev told Kennedy at Vienna, State Department assessments of a speech by Khrushchev on wars of national liberation and its bearing on Amencan policy, and thousands of other important documents. The confidentiality sources is regarded by every newspaperman as an absolute- An editor is often asked, But who elected you to decide that your judgment is better than that of the secretary of stale? The answer that seemed so simple when the Constitution was written now seems rather difficult for many people to swallow. The same Constitution that "elected the president gave the press the right to examine his actions and contest his judgments and those of his servants. I believe also that the constitutional rights also imposed an ethical obligation on the press to use the right , decently and in the public interest but it very carefully and purposefully did not set standards for either decency or public inherest. My colleagues and I edit the news columns of The New York Times and we have our ideas about what the standards of The Times should b ' But I would not want to impose those standards on The Berkely Barb. The strength of the American press is in its diversity and not its conformity.. Standards will be in dispute but the fact that they are in dispute should reinforce the importance of the constitutional right rather than serve to wither it. Still locked up and denied to the press and public are documents having to do with the have until now. ; to prevent finding out could have least a few Love Secrecy Now diplomats dearly love secrecy. I covered foreign affairs and diplomacy for If years and I really do not believe a great deal was served by secrecy. I do believe most was gained by exposure, even though there may have been momentary embarrassments. Foreign policy is a matter ol lives and deaths. It should be understood by the people. In order to understand it and make judgments, the public must understand not only the end results but as much as possible of the negotiations the options open process and the reason why some were taken and others foreclosed. There is no great hope that obsessive government secrecy will suddenly diminish. The public considers war too important for generals but it has not yet grasped the idea that diplomacy may really be too important to be left so completely within the power of diplomats or even the President to determine what should be known and not known. It has not come to grips with the whole question of accountability for diplomacy and foreign policy. It is precisely because of the secrecy mama, precisely because so much is hidden or obscured, that the press must be even more determined than ever. Inquire Deeply I do not believe every scrap of foreign-polic- y information must be printed. I do believe that it is the obligation of the press to inquire as deeply and as possible, to print what it considers relevant information, to give the citizenry a clear idea of what is taking place. That is why the whole question of confidentiality of news sources, always fundamental to a free press, becomes even more important. If a government operates m an atmobroadly sphere of information information. Some report- will not ask a few ers certain questions or put themselves in situations where they think they may come under direct court pressure to reveal somrees or information and there are reporters who are destroying m The issue of press confidentiality is approaching a crisis point. Its solution rests first in the publics understanding of its own involvement and then in protective legislation state and federal laws to the shield newspaperman from court orders to reveal his sources. This is not a matter of special privilege for newspaper The New 1973, (Copyright, Times Co.) Exquisite heart shaped pendants with genuine . . . superbly made opa! in rich long-lastin- g 14K.T. GOLD OVERLAY 4 JEWELRY iiniiiuikiuuiiliii Pendant, left $14.50 14K1 79 SOUTH MAIN 901 Salt Lak City, Utah 841 1 right $20.00 Gold earrings $24.00 (for pierced ears) Phone (u 363-593- 6 SOCIETY MEMBER AMERICAN GEM EARLY WEEK SAVINGS PRICES EFFECTIVE MON., FEB. 12TH AND TUES., FEB. 13TH, 1973 files and notes and to future But generally speaking, reporters and editors seem to be proceeding as usual, having taken the decision to fight in the courts if necessary and to go to jail if necessary. Nobody can say what will happen if the arrest of newspapermen for protecting confide- aims GRADE . 'A' FRESH WHOLE FRYERS ntiality becomes an accepted part of the American scene. Four cases are bad enough. Forty or 100, if the legislators and the public permit the courts to get away with it. could entirely change the nature of reporting in this coun- try. Solve Problem But even if every reporter in the country were willing to go to jail, it would not solve the confidentiality problem. There is the impact on the to be considered, ; sources i Some sources who normally would have given important information to the press have changed their minds. They would in the past have been willing to accept the reporters word of honor. They are considerably less willing to do so now that they know that the price of that word of honor may be an indeterminate jail sentence for the new TABLE TRIMMED TENDER BLADE CUT BNLS. POT ROAST FRYER BREASTS ' , ', never what this loss of confidentiality of sources will cost because we will never know what we might have known. It seems entirely plain that the destruction of confidentiality of news sources will have an impact on how much the public knows about every aspect of public affairs. There will simply be fewer and fewer people in government and out of government willing to take the nsk that the press will be able to protect them. It will not all happen tomorrow but it will happen as long as this country is ready to say that the pnee of dissidence is exposure. Involving Crime We will know a reporter can subpoenaed where there ts an inquiry involving some enme that has taken and wouldn't that place protect most sources since most stones have nothing to do with crimes? In theory, only be When a government wants to find out the identity of a source, particularly a source within the bureaucracy, it can become wonderfully imaginative in the use of federal attorneys, grand Junes and indictments. Our government has not had a great deal of experience with this, since the Caldwell case is relatively new, but it has shown itself a quick student, as grand-jursubpoenas in the Pentagon Papers case have shown The issue has spread far level beyond the federal Judges and local district attorneys all over the country have taken the Caldwell case as a kind of hunting license to go after reporters on a wide variety of cases, all of them having nothing at all to do with - !, USDA CHOICE GRADE CLING PEACHES CHUNKTUNA FRUIT DRINKS TOMATO SAUCE KRAFT DINNERS F&P 2',2 CAN LB. A LB. LEAN GROUND BEEF . York VALENTINE GIFT tapes important research. must come from Trust Reporter Confidential sources share some things m common They do not wish to be identified either out of fear of legal or ador ministrative punishment nd they public opprobrium. trust the reporter to keep their identity secret and keep confidential certain information that might be used to track his sources, or thev An editor Boston, not overly given to dr?ma, gave me a bumper sticker that summed up in four words just how important some of us think this is: Save the First Amendment. If I had a car, I would stick it on. Drop Story those willing to risk the ernment's wrath. The greater the secrecy, the greater the nsk and the greater the importance of the con- - The nature of the sources depends on the nature of the story, of course. On a police story it can be a patrolman or a detective who tells the reporter something because he likes him or because he is mad at his superiors or he thinks the public is being had. There are confidential sources in the military, officers who are not convinced of the total wisdom, let us say, of the Joint Chiefs. There are confidential sources m Wall Street, in sports, in the Black Panthers, in the theater, in the press, in political parties just about everyw here, including the world of diplomacy Often they are dissidents in the sense that they disagree with a policy or an order to keep it secret. Even a three-sta- r general or a career amb- -' as sador can be a dissident at one time or another If confidentiality of news sources is really destroyed, it will mean that the press will be virtually dominated by the official version of what is taking place in American society , men but for the First Amendwherever it touches upon government and that means just ment. You cant tell a carpenin the ter he is free to practice his about everywhere bureaucracy, the military, the trade as long as he uses no judiciary, the police, the ex- tools. You cant tell a newspenditure of funds, and on all paperman that he has a free levels of government. press as long as he does not use his tools and among them to will be able Officialdom tool is confidentithe essential present its version, as always. sources. of ality be will the to Its access press unaffected. But elbowed out entirely will be those who need access most people with something to reveal but not powerful enough to reveal on it. it with their name-tag- s There are at least two cases where news organizations have decided to drop a story because they felt they could no longer guarantee confidentiality of source or conuden-tia- l secrecy, pertinent fidential source. This is quite different from the authorized, placed anonymous, highly source government gr officials use when they want information leaked without attribution. national security. The potential impact on virtually every kmd of serious reporting is a mghtmare for journalists everywhere. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press already has listed 19 cases that it considers attempts by the courts to require news reporters to disclose the source or or content of confidential other unpublished information. The list also includes three attempts to get this kind of information from reporters by the use of legislative or execuand seven tive subpoenas attempts by the courts to enjoin reporting of public proceedings. News Sources LB. CHUNK BOLOGNA HI GRADE SHORT RIBS USDA CHOICE QUALITY LB. LB. 1 |