1st Amendent For Me, But Not For Thee

WSJ OpinionToday observes with some amusement that the media have suddenly rediscovered the First Amendment:

Isn't it amazing what a raft of federal subpoenas will do to concentrate the media mind?

Back when columnist Robert Novak looked to be the main target of special federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, our professional press ethicists were tut-tutting about how they'd never "hide" behind journalistic privilege to abet a "crime." But now that a federal judge has held Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury the sources for his own Valerie Plame story, suddenly the eyebrows furrow and talk turns to the threat to the First Amendment.

In recent decades we in the news business have depended less on legal privilege in protecting ourselves from being compelled to give up our sources than on a healthy recognition by most prosecutors that jailing reporters for standing on principle is not wise. What has been unleashed by the federal investigation into the Novak leak now threatens to alter that balance decisively. And those who only now decry the implications for First Amendment freedoms are coming very late to the game.

- Cassandra