Source Confidentiality Takes Another Hit
Walter Pincus, a Washington Post reporter was found in contempt of court for not revealing his sources. It looks like the courts accepting reporters’ sources as sacred is on the way out.
A $500 per day fine has been imposed on Pincus, but suspended for at least 30 days to give him time to appeal. Jail time was not ordered by the judge.
A federal judge found a Washington Post reporter in contempt of court yesterday for refusing to reveal who gave him information about an investigation of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled that Lee is entitled to know who reporter Walter Pincus’s sources are because his lawsuit against the government for alleged violations of federal privacy law cannot go forward otherwise, and because he has exhausted all other possibilities for getting the information.
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