The Plain Truth about the Plain Dealer

By BonnieBlueFlag

Ohio Paper Holding 2 Investigative Stories

CLEVELAND (AP) - The Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, is holding two investigative stories based on leaked documents because they could result in the type of court showdown that led to a New York Times reporter being jailed.

The Plain Dealer is trying to find a way to publish the stories without relying on the documents, editor Doug Clifton said Friday.
"It was documentation that would have been illegal to share, so there wasn't any ambiguity about what we had," Clifton said.
Clifton said he had never before withheld a story because of such concerns.

"The climate has always been different," Clifton said. "Let's face it: During the Watergate years with Deep Throat, it was never even thought of. It wasn't even a remote possibility that someone was going to get subpoenaed because of Deep Throat squealing. That has changed so dramatically in the last few years."

The stories dealt with local and state government. Clifton told The New York Times in Saturday's edition that "the material was under seal or something along those lines."

On Wednesday, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to divulge a confidential source to a grand jury investigating the leak of an undercover CIA operative's name. Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, agreed to talk and avoided jail.

Clifton said The Plain Dealer had decided several weeks ago - before Miller was sent to jail - to withhold the stories because the leaked documents could result in subpoenas and court sanctions, including jail.

He wrote a column June 30 explaining to readers 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.

"I wanted the public to understand that this isn't an abstraction, that this is a real issue," he said Friday. "Things that are important for the public stand in jeopardy of not getting reported because of the state of the law."

Has this story about the Plain Dealer been released, in the hope that there will be a public outcry, for the two investigative pieces to be published?

Ever since Watergate, every reporter has dreamed of being the next Woodward and Bernstein. There is no longer any self-control with regard to what will be put in print, no longer does anyone weigh the possibility that what they print, may have tremendous consequences concerning our own national security.

The generation that knew, "Lose Lips Sink Ships," is not in control, and we are all put at jeopardy by this new tabloid journalistic mentality.

There are any number of ways to deal with corrupt situations, mistakes made by government officials, greed and graft, why must it always be via TV, radio and print media and based on "Anonymous Sources?" Those cases should be the exception, not the rule. If the anonymous source is not revealed, how are we to know it is the truth, that it is not a planted story, or an untruth meant to achieve personal revenge.

And now, the Plain Dealer is in possession of documents that it is illegal for them to have, so they say. Are they documents like the Dan Rather memos, or the Downing Street memo, which on closer examination appear to be fictitious?

When the Plain Dealer could use that old familiar "Anonymous Source," things like "Truth," "Personal Responsibility," and "National Security," wouldn't have mattered for one second.

Mr. Clifton laments the years of "Deep Throat," when they would have never thought about the possibility of being subpoenaed, because Mark Felt was a "Traitor!"

I regret the years and years of turmoil, that we have had to endure, because Nixon was not allowed to close out the Vietnam War properly. He was forced to resign over something that could have been handled in many ways, other than by the sanctimonious New York Post based on an anonymous source with a personal vendetta!

Written by: BonnieBlueFlag