'We don't need to subpoena reporters,' a US national security official reportedly said after a White House briefing. 'We know who you are talking to'
We are all familiar with the principle that journalists protect their sources, but increasingly that central tenet of the fourth estate is being undermined by modern technology, with frightening consequences for the public's right to know. And worrying developments in the United States, where there is no public interest defence for leaked stories, should make the world's media sit up and take notice.
Naturally, the point of source protection is to keep identities secret, but that is based on the notion that the reporter has the ability to keep the source secret. Increasingly, that is no longer possible, according to Edward Wasserman, dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Speaking in Los Angeles last week, he said six Americans had been charged with espionage last year for leaking classified information to reporters, the same charge a spy would face if accused of stealing high-level military secrets.
"What's most striking about the half-dozen Espionage Act prosecutions is that none of these sources were identified by the journalists involved. That's because the reporters weren't needed."
Lucy Dalglish of the Reporters Committee for Protection of the Press recalls being told by a national security official after a White House briefing: "We're not going to subpoena reporters in the future. We don't need to. We know who you're talking to."
They know from phone records and intercepts, from social media comments, from emails, mobile phone tracking, from physical surveillance, said Wasserman. He maintained that despite President Obama speaking approvingly of greater co-operation with the press, greater support for open government and greater tolerance for whistleblowers, the climate for investigative reporting had worsened dramatically. "The technologies are fully globalised, and the determination of those in power to control the flow of official information is universal," he warned. "My belief is that much of this is of wider application."
And the war against leaking was not limited to national security. Private-sector sourcing had been criminalised, too, Wasserman said. "Business reporters confront anti-disparagement clauses that forbid disgruntled former employees discussing wrongdoing by the companies they worked for. Mandatory arbitration clauses prohibit unhappy customers in many industries from speaking publicly about their grievances."
On an operational level, the more sophisticated reporters now confine their source contacts to personal meetings. They say nothing via email and if they use mobile phones they resort to what drug dealers call burn phones and replace them frequently. And they install encryption technologies.
This was just one of a series of modern media dilemmas discussed at the annual gathering of the international Organization of News Ombudsmen, which I currently chair. Readers' editors and standards editors from 16 countries travelled to Los Angeles, partly to show solidarity with US members after big cuts had seen their numbers dwindle, which is out of step with the rest of the world. ONO membership has risen 38% since 2008, but nearly all the gains have been outside the US.
One of those new members is Cynthia Ottaviano, Argentina's first national news ombudsman, representing the nation's radio and television audiences. The former TV and newspaper journalist travels the country holding public meetings and encouraging debate on the content of programmes. She started work only last year, but already has tackled the portrayal of violence against women on television, watershed scheduling, better programmes for children and the withdrawal of cultural and educational cable channels. Such a difference from 30 years ago and the dark days of dictatorship, when Argentina's media were regulated by a committee made up entirely of officers from the armed forces, with no public participation.
And while much of the media in the west is in financial agony, AS Panneerselvan, readers' editor of the Hindu (circulation 1.5m), reminded us that in some parts of the world, media are booming. But with rapid growth in circulation comes a rapid growth in unethical behaviour, so ONO can contemplate some growth there, too.