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!