The PD: Aiding and abetting criminals

Here's an interesting story about the Cleveland Plain Dealer holding back from publication two investigative reports concerning local and state government because they are afraid that they might be forced some day to reveal the source of the "leaked documents" that the stories would be based upon.

Apparently the PD's editor wrote a piece in the June 30 PD explaining "why it's important to protect sources, and how the public would suffer if reporters' ability to gather news is compromised. He mentioned the potential consequences if the newspaper published the two investigative stories."

The courageous PD editor also says: "Things that are important for the public stand in jeopardy of not getting reported because of the state of the law."

Huh? Isn't part of the journalist's creed to get the truth out, and damn the consequences? Here, they are afraid to put their own necks on the line by publishing what they think is an important story. But the PD won't report it because they might be dragged into court some day to reveal their sources. That, they reason, would chill others in the future from being sources for stories.

So the PD won't publish an important story because their source might suffer some consequence, which would in the future give pause to other potential sources, which in turn would prevent the PD from getting information they need to publish an important future story, which consequently wouldn't get published. Can anyone else spot the Catch-22 here?

Of course, let's not forget that this is all based upon, in the editor's words, "documentation that would have been illegal to share...." Got that? The PD got documents that someone gave to them illegally. And the PD won't base a story on the documents unless they can find some other source for the information in the documents so that they can obfuscate the identity of the person who committed the initial crime of illicitly turning over the documents to the PD.

We in the legal profession have a term for that: aiding and abetting.