An Exchange on Reporters and Their Confidential Sources

Kinsley also objects that in this case the leaker is not some endangered whistle-blower but "the powerful institution itself," a White House operative using a leak to punish a dissenting voice. I don't know if that suspicion is true, and neither does Kinsley; that's what the special counsel is investigating. But even if that were so, should it be left entirely to prosecutors to determine which anonymous sources are benign and which are malicious? If so, what's left of the protection?

Kinsley is right that journalism needs to be more discriminating about which sources will be promised anonymity. The casual reliance on nameless sources has contributed to public mistrust and undermined the authority of stories in which anonymous sourcing is genuinely important. We need to clean up our act, and at my newspaper and others we are trying to do so.

But it's naive to think special prosecutors will reward our scrupulousness and stop issuing subpoenas to reporters as long as the law gives them an unrestricted fishing license.

Just so we're clear, I agree with Kinsley that there is a public interest in protecting the identity of covert intelligence agents. It is not the only public interest, however. Kinsley cites the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination as one interest that a court should weigh in the balance. I would argue that the ability of a free press to do its job is another. Had they labored in the current climate of mistrust and hostility, the founding fathers might not have dared to enact a 1st Amendment. But they did, and they had in mind that news organizations, however imperfect, are a useful check on the people with power over our lives.

Bill Keller

Executive Editor

New York Times

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Michael Kinsley responds:

What follows are my views. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Los Angeles Times. In fact, forget "necessarily": They definitely don't reflect those views, which are closer to those of Bill Keller and the Other Times.

I do believe that journalists should be able to protect the identity of their sources in many circumstances. If Keller believes that this privilege is not absolute, we are not so far apart. In a phone conversation, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. also emphasized that he did not favor an absolute privilege. But a recent New York Times editorial and a signed Op-Ed piece coauthored by Sulzberger gave no hint of non-absolutism. A PR tip: Make your reasonableness better known.