Attack At The Source: Can reporters really protect anonymous sources? Why the Plame case is so scary.
Part of the clash between lawyers and journalists can be attributed to their shared populist bent. As Stephen Bates, a former prosecutor for Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater investigation and literary editor of The Wilson Quarterly, notes, both reporters and prosecutors are ?professional snoops ? curious, analytical, skeptical. Both pursue truth and . . . both believe that their work serves society, a belief (however justified) that sometimes engenders self-righteousness, obstinacy and hypersensitivity.?
Of course, there are some major differences as well. Prosecutors have the power to put people in jail, journalists don?t, at least not directly.
