Norman Pearlstine (pictured) last week sought federal documents relating to subpoenas of reporters in three recent cases of reporter-source privilege, reports the Wall Street Journal. The cases -- ranging from stories on Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use to terrorist financing -- illustrate growing tensions between news organizations, the White House, and Congress over the extent of the First Amendment rights of journalists to protect confidential sources. "I believe that the framers of the Constitution put a free and independent press in the First Amendment to protect the public's right to know, and the only way you do that is protect reporters' ability to keep certain sources confidential," says Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, a Republican critic of the White House on the issue. Pence will cosponsor legislation in the 110th Congress to protect journalists against government harassment over sources.
Americans Aran and Margot Lee Shetterly will publish the third edition of their new English-language monthly, Inside Mexico, in January. Targeting both the large English-speaking expat population and tourists, the 20,000 circulation paper "has the look of an American alternative weekly but on higher quality newsprint to give it a magazine feel," reports Editor & Publisher. The paper is published and primarily circulated in Mexico City, but additional copies are distributed in Cancun, Merida, and Acapulco. "We look at this project as a way to build a bridge between English-speakers in Mexico and this country itself," says Aran Shetterly.
The San Francisco alt-weekly and the Media Alliance filed papers yesterday to intervene in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Bay Area newspaper deal between Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group Inc., reports Editor & Publisher. The Bay Guardian hopes to unseal documents filed by the two companies in the case. "The courts are supposed to operate in public, and there's a clear public interest in this information," says Editor and Publisher Bruce Brugmann (pictured). "Our intent here is to ensure that the nation's biggest newspaper chains, as they move to destroy daily competition and impose a regional monopoly on the Bay Area, cannot do so in the dark of night with sealed records that set a terrible precedent for the free press, the First Amendment, and open government."
Jeff Koyen accuses the Village Voice's new editor of failing to reinvent the alt-weekly format in his first three months on the job. "I'm ashamed to admit that I was optimistic when Blum was hired to run the Village Voice," Koyen writes in the British daily Guardian. "Unfortunately, Blum is playing by the book." Koyen, who approves of the "cleaned house" that followed the Voice's acquisition by the New Times chain, formerly competed with the Manhattan alt-weekly when he worked for a number years at the New York Press, where he was editor from 2003 to 2005.
Having been allowed to read an advance draft of a critical story about him that the Washington City Paper is apparently preparing to publish, investigative reporter Murray Waas (pictured) beats D.C.'s alt-weekly to the punch with a rambling indictment on Huffington Post. Waas accuses the City Paper of baiting him to get juicy quotes for the story; making "degrading comments" about his experience as a cancer survivor; and using the newspaper as a tool to wage personal battles. "I believe that I have a clear obligation to other cancer survivors not to remain silent about such acts of prejudice and intolerance," Waas explains in defending his decision to go public.
The first minute of the new year will see the instant declassification of a mountain of previously secret government documents in what is set to become an annual event under a "25-year law" passed by the Clinton Administration but that is only now coming into effect, reports the New York Times. The somewhat surprising decision by the Bush administration to uphold the law -- after two three-year delays -- which places a quarter-century limit on the classified status of most government documents, is being lauded by open-government advocates and historians alike. "Americans need to know this history, and the history is in those documents," Anna K. Nelson, a historian at American University, tells the Times.
The publication of a letter by Virginia Congressman Virgil H. Goode, Jr. in the Charlottesville alt-weekly has led to widespread coverage and condemnation, including commentary by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and The New York Times. In the constituent letter, Goode expressed negative views toward Muslim immigrants and the Koran, warning that "if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims [like recently elected Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison] elected to office." Goode's press secretary later told the paper that the Congressman has no intention of apologizing and stands by the letter.
Village Voice Media's headquarter's paper has been threatened with a felony indictment unless it removes the home address of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio from its Web site and agrees to never publish the address of a law enforcement officer online again, the paper's Stephen Lemons reports. The threat comes more than two years after the paper first published Arpaio's address in an article intended "to show the absurdity of [the sheriff's] home address' being readily available to any idiot with access to a computer when [he] used the very same law to justify hiding information on commercial real estate he owns." The alt-weekly has long been a critic of Arpaio, who it accuses of corruption and having a "vindictive streak." The paper's cover this week depicts an envelope containing a Christmas card addressed to the Sheriff at his home.
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