The jailing of Judith Miller and whatever happened to the moral courage of the American media?

The jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times is just plain wrong. No journalist can do his or her job without informants and, with rare exceptions, confidentiality is fundamental to securing such sources. The reasons are simple. An exposed source, even one whose motives are pure and who is telling the absolute truth to the great benefit of society as a whole, will almost certainly suffer dismissal, loss of career and quite possibly more severe penalties. That is a high price for standing up to be counted. Accordingly, a journalist, whose involvement in a story is almost invariably transitory, has an absolute obligation to protect his or her sources.

Unfortunately, American society is both unfair and unkind to truth tellers. Nonetheless, democracy, which depends upon informed decision making, just does not work unless there is a free flow of accurate information to the public. It would be nice to think that government and business would provide that as part of their contribution towards the public good, but the fact is that both government and business dissemble, lie, distort and obfuscate to an egregious degree. Indeed, the present Bush Administration is widely reckoned to be the most secretive in American history and most corporate public relations departments are scarcely models of truth and accuracy. As to Karl Rove's politics of manipulation, hate, smear and innuendo, the nation should be ashamed to have him working in the White House.

So all we are left with to keep the system in check are the media – flawed and all as they certainly are – brilliant and vital though they can be.

Now the media know all this, and the fact that Judith has gone to jail over a principle that underpins the profession’s entire ability to do its job – yet they have been curiously indifferent to her fate. The management of Time magazine has effectively caved in over Mathew Cooper, a thoroughly disgraceful performance, and most other media, whether press or TV, seem to be more concerned with distancing themselves than fighting to secure her liberty and the validity of her principle. True, the New York Times has stood tall and has backed Judith Miller to the hilt but the courage of one great newspaper is not enough.

Now is the time for all media to co-operate in fighting this blatant abuse of power and to take such actions such as closing down for one day a week – until justice is done and Judith Miller is released.

Ms. Miller will not give in and she is entirely right not to do so – so she deserves the active and ongoing support of the entire media community. Indeed, she deserves the support of all of us.