CRIME ETC.

Avedon over at The Sideshow is pissed off at Michael Kinsley for missing the point with the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

Michael Kinsley doesn't get it. The people who received sensitive information about Valerie Plame were parties to a crime. This isn't about protecting sources. These people weren't whistle-blowers, they were specifically giving them this information to hurt Joe Wilson, not to inform the public. They burned a CIA operative because they wanted to help the White House hide the fact that it had lied to the American public. A lot of journalists have been hurt by these same people and the NYT and WaPo and Michael Kinsley have been silent, but suddenly it's Judy Miller and Matthew Cooper and the Newspapers of Record care about protecting journalists. Well, too late. You weren't there when they put Vanessa Leggett in jail for no reason, were you? And you haven't been screaming about the way this administration has punished whistle-blowers who were really trying to expose criminal wrong-doing. The only sources you care to protect are the criminals in the White House. There's something wrong with that.

Yes, this is the point, after all. They didn't approach these people for a story and they never seriously entertained the notion of writing one. So what makes this different from witnessing any other crime?

And you know what? I'm a little tired of "journalism" being so heavily anchored to leaked stories, anyway. The fact is, there are plenty of stories to be had out there. They just take a little hard work - unlike, saying, hanging out at the right Beltway cocktail parties.
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