Novak’s Shield

I was rather more fascinated by Novak’s column on the journalist shield law than Jane was. While I’m blathering about why, see if you can figure out how this column differs from almost all of Novak’s columns. I’ll provide the answer below.

Novak doesn’t directly call for passage of the journalist shield law in the column. Rather, he presents the case from Congressman Mike Pence’s perspective, weighing the wins and losses for Pence’s bill this week.

The bad news last week for conservative Republican Rep. Mike Pence was private confirmation that his proposed law protecting journalists from runaway judges was opposed by President George W. Bush himself, not just inflexible Justice Department lawyers. The good news this week for Pence was an unexpected endorsement by Bush’s successor heading the Republican Party, John McCain.

After framing the argument in terms of Pence, Novak goes on to give a journalistic-centric view of the shield law. As Jane has pointed out, Novak does put Patrick Fitzgerald at the center of this debate, at one point making a seemingly unsubstantiated claim that Fitzgerald views journalists "as adversaries":

Justice Department opposition to a shield was fueled by prosecutors such as Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, who view journalists as adversaries.

I’ve asked Fitzgerald’s office whether Novak verified that assertion with Fitzgerald before he printed it–I will let you know if the most silent spokesperson in public view gives me an answer (update: well that was a mighty quick "no comment" from Randy Samborn).

But Novak also puts Toni Locy–whom Steven Hatfill has subpoenaed for her sources naming him a person of interest in the anthrax investigation–at the center of the debate.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton of Washington had just levied fines against former USA Today reporter Toni Locy, escalating to $5,000 a day, for failing to reveal her confidential sources in reporting on the 2001 anthrax attacks. Walton’s decision, which is under appeal, stipulated that neither USA Today nor anybody else could help pay the fines for Locy, now a journalism professor making $75,000 a year. Pence told the House that Walton’s conduct showed the need to protect "the one time-tested way of holding the government accountable" and "ensuring the free flow of information to the American people."

I find Novak’s focus on Locy more interesting than his focus on Fitzgerald. After all, by quoting Pence defending the "free flow of information" involved in the Hatfill case, Novak is actually defending the ability of Administration officials to make criminal insinuations with impunity, insinuations that never translate into indictments, much less prosecutions. Novak is defending the economy behind which Administration officials use reporters privilege as a shield to smear private citizens. An economy Novak relies on.

Not surprisingly, Novak (who admitted in the Libby trial that he doesn’t take notes from his interviews) doesn’t mention that the reason Locy gives for protecting her sources is that she–a journalism professor–doesn’t have notes to remind her which of her sources told her what about Hatfill.

After placing the shield law in the context of the debate (at least as viewed by an insider), Novak then returns to the question of whether Pence is getting a fair deal from conservatives: McCain, Kyl, Mukasey, and, most importantly, from George Bush.

Pence hoped this opposition did not really reflect the president’s stance, and I inquired at the White House. Indeed, I was told, this was George W. Bush’s own view. Pence, to his dismay, received that clear message last week.

Considering McCain’s hard line on national security, Pence expected no more than neutrality from a critic of the New York Times’s disclosure of the government’s communications surveillance. Instead, McCain said at the annual meeting of the Associated Press on Monday that, after "a hard time deciding," he "narrowly" endorsed shield legislation as not only "a license to do harm" but also "a license to do good, to disclose injustice and unlawfulness and inequities, and to encourage their swift correction."

Pence would like to make that case face to face with Bush. But this president is not easy to see, even for a prominent congressman of his own party, and Pence may have to settle for a senior aide. Nevertheless, Pence is hard to discourage and still wants that meeting to enlist his president in helping Congress pass what supporters say would be its first press freedom legislation since the Bill of Rights.

In other words, the column is really designed to pressure Bush to give Pence a hearing, so Pence can fight for the shield law, rather than Novak fighting for it himself. So rhetorically, Novak’s column sets up Pence as the voice calling for a shield law, even while his argument is basically a defense of the economy of smears on which Novak has made his living. Think about that rhetorical move for a minute.

And now–how this column differs from almost every other Novak column? Where are the anonymous sources? Novak names Pence, Kyl, McCain, Mukasey, McConnell, Chertoff, Hillary and Obama, and Reggie, a veritable cocktail party of named sources! Aside from the unsubstantiated claim that prosecutors everywhere view journalists as adversaries, there is just one unnamed source, "I was told … this was George W. Bush’s own view," which at least makes it clear who the named source is speaking for: George Bush.

Funny how, when Novak makes an argument that hits close to home for him, he can write a column peopled for once with named sources, even if he makes that argument in someone else’s name!

image_print
7 replies
  1. BayStateLibrul says:

    I realize that we all know that Novak was involved with Fitzy…
    But don’t you think he should have put a disclaimer/note in his article?
    The guy is one slimy snake…

  2. JohnLopresti says:

    Maybe Novak is relying on Bush’s source, Cheney, for the noShield policy; I wonder if some other folks might find any substance in L.Chaffee’s (I-RI) interview about his book, aired today. Clearly, a lot of people know more than I about the USveep, but some interchanges seemed revelatory, especially the opening series of questions about the veep’s polity vs congress in a meeting with the residue of five R-moderates, which took place “hours” following Scotus’ rule that the FL state supreme court was banned from letting the recount proceed into the heartland of Democratic voter dominance.

  3. skdadl says:

    Kyl effectively put a hold on shield legislation after last year, proposing an alternative that actually prohibits a reporter from disclosing any classified information, whatever the merit of the classification.

    I’m trying to translate the logic of Kyl’s “alternative.” Is the purpose of that alternative simply to stop whistle-blowers? And is that the purpose of Mukasey, Chertoff, McConnell, and, I guess, Bush?

    I agree with BSL and Jane that it is beneath contempt for Novak to rabbit on loosely about the CIA leak investigation without a disclosure note, and pretty lax of WaPo editors to allow that.

  4. JohnLopresti says:

    Plame’s plight is still a badge of courage for Novak, and the smidgeon of empathy Novak evinces is for JudyJudy. Locy may be on a cold trail, but Reggie might have occasion to hear about new evidence if she should find some new leads; those faithful bloodhounds are canny.

  5. Neil says:

    Here’s my theory. When Novak finally consented to meet with Fitz, Fitz already had him in a box. All Novak’s power was gone. Novak hates the fact the Fitz could see right through him.

    Fitz gave him a choice. Novak didn’t like it one bit, and Fitz would not change the choice ergo Fitz “sees journalists as adversaries.” Of course, Novak uses Miller as his validating example but that stand MO for Novak.

    Novak is pretty good playing the game “conceal the hand behind the hidden agenda” but not good enough. Emptywheel sees right through Novak too. I don’t think Novak would like Emptywheel much either.

  6. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    So rhetorically, Novak’s column sets up Pence as the voice calling for a shield law, even while his argument is basically a defense of the economy of smears on which Novak has made his living. Think about that rhetorical move for a minute.

    This would fit with a man who claims that he ‘doesn’t take notes on interviews’, presumably so that he can maintain ‘plausible deniability’ in order to protect himself and his sources from legal jeopardy. It must flatter his vanity to suppose that his secrets are so very valuable they require legal protection, but it’s probably futile.

    (Lengthy pondering ensues…a bit OT)
    Novak’s obsession with shield laws strikes this reader as one key of the paradoxes of the times in which we live. So many people — Novak being a stellar example — derive their identity and income from secrets, while all over the world people work openly and collaboratively (generally of different nationalities)y on projects, either for business, research, or Open Source initiatives: most of that collaborative knowledge work CREATES VALUE. In contrast, it seems unlikely that Novak’s secrets can continue to retain their ‘information value’ in a world reshaped by forces that view secret information as untrustworthy, error-ridden, and suspect.

    Novak believes that his secrets have value in a world being reshaped by Wikipedia, Google Earth, WordPress, and ‘pirate economics’ (remix, remash, reloop, revise). His assumptions ignore fundamental shifts in society, communication, economics, political affairs, or national power.

    I don’t think Novak ‘gets’ what’s happening socially and economically.
    It’s not about whether I do, or don’t, like Robert Novak. It’s that the information he offers is diminishing in value, and no shield law will shore up — or inflate — his declining relevance.

    The paradox between the roles played in the Plame case by the NYT’s Nicholas Kristof (who covers environmental and human rights issues) and Robert Novak (who excels in national security intrigues) fascinates me. Kristoff seems to see the world far more broadly, and realistically, than Novak does. Arguably, Kristoff is by far the better national security reporter, although that’s not his primary objective.

    Kristoff has reported on teenage prostitutes risking AIDS in Thailand for $1.50/trick, he’s reported on the environmental degradation and resource scarcity that underlie the violence in Dafur, and he’s examined the implications of the rising sea levels. Arguably, AIDS, resource scarcity/desertification, and climate change are all very serious national security issues. Yet Kristoff doesn’t seem to obsess on getting a shield law.
    I gather that Kristoff’s background is in biology; he pays attention to soils, crops, water, demographics, food supply, and — no big surprise — he explains how those seemingly mundane factors affect political stability. He risks malaria and other nasty effects of travel to hot, muggy places — and yet he is the reporter who first quoted Joe Wilson’s concerns about the bogus story of WMD/Niger yellowcake.
    It’s not surprising that Kristoff wasn’t blinded by the neocon cocktail weenie gossip. Kristoff has traveled to Africa, spent time reporting in poor nations (like Niger), and he would have been able to assess and evaluate Wilson’s claims more accurately than Novak (who was caught up in the DC weenie circuit with its political intrigues and ignorance about the world’s poor).

    Novak derives his livelihood from Beltway political intrigue and military-industrial secrecy. As near as I can fathom, Novak is incomprehensibly ignorant of the fundamental climate, resource, demographic, and cultural issues that are driving global politics. (Most likely, Novak ignorantly supposes that elections and government contracts have a bigger impact on world affairs than soil degradation, diseases, and starvation. After all, admitting ignorance of soils and crop viability would hardly add any lustre to Novak’s vaunted sense of self importance. Cocktail weenies are perhaps in short supply for ‘dirt guys’, aka soils scientists). The value of Novak’s information declines in conjunction with America’s sinking fortunes. His information still has value, but it isn’t really going to help identify the key, underlying problems that manifest as national security issues. It’s simply not that useful to know about military weaponry when people are dying of famine or disease.

    In contrast, Kristoff’s information will continue to increase in value, IMHO. He’s trying to describe what’s at the edge of the curve, and that’s the information that is increasingly valuable. It’s not a litany of military weapons; it’s about seemingly mundane topics like soil moisture levels, seeds, and water quality.
    Joe Wilson should be gratified to consider that his grave concerns were understood by a man who seeks to report on the world’s burgeoning poor, its diseases, and its hunger. Those are the serious threats to national security, no matter how many shield laws Novak is able to obtain.

    Whether a shield law is enacted in response to Novak’s desires may be beside the point.
    I have no clear grasp of what the world will be like in ten years — other than hungrier and hotter — but the value of secrets in a world where the problems that need solving require collective, social intelligence needs to be part of the conversation.

    Novak’s information is losing its value.
    Will the future be served by legalizing shield laws in the age of Open Source projects and the Internet…? It seems unlikely.

Comments are closed.