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Balco leak uncovered

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by pressboxer, Dec 21, 2006.

  1. DyePack

    DyePack New Member

    It's probably tiresome for you since you don't have an intelligent response to it. But then, I think you're still stuck at the reply to "Knock, knock."
     
  2. Deskgrunt50

    Deskgrunt50 Well-Known Member

    The news was reported in the paper. Long before the book.

    You, you're not smart. This is the icing on your cake of circular logic.
     
  3. DyePack

    DyePack New Member

    Of course, you, like many others, don't have a response to the argument. Probably shouldn't go proclaiming intelligence just yet.
     
  4. Deskgrunt50

    Deskgrunt50 Well-Known Member

    I've stated my argument on this thread. You just don't like it, so you choose to ignore it. Sort of like a retarded child. Which makes sense in this case.

    I'm done with you now. No point in trying to have any sort of real debate with someone who clearly has nothing to back up his argument, and who just wants to troll.
     
  5. zaphod

    zaphod New Member

    This is, actually, a good question, and it has a good, simple answer: Because they feel shield laws have merit, period.

    For the longest time, you had been clinging to the incorrect proposition that the merit of shield laws rise or fall on the circumstances surrounding the leak of secret information. You appear, finally, to have abandoned that irrelevancy. Notice that the federal judge in the Balco case has issued his contempt citation not on the grounds that Fainaru-Wada and Williams came into possession of grand jury testimony, but instead on the grounds that the two reporters have declined to reveal who provided it to them. The leaking of secret information is a priori fact. It's a separate question. The grand jury wants the reporter's information so it can complete the job it was created to complete: determine who, if anyone, acted illegally in leaking the information.

    That's why many of us have said that the leak and whether it was illegal is not connected to shield-law theory. You keep thinking we're trying to link the two concepts. You're wrong; we're not.

    The grand jury -- an investigative arm of law enforcement -- has subpoenaed Fainaru-Wada and Williams to demand the name of their source. These are the very circumstances that state shield laws have been created to address. But because there is no federal shield law, the Chronicle is forced to beat back the subpoena on First Amendment grounds. The argument has boiled down to two competing views: The government claims "journalists have no special privilege to withhold evidence from a grand jury." The Chronicle claims "the value of the reporting in this case -- which led to a congressional investigation and a new steroid-testing policy for professional baseball -- outweighed any harm caused by the leak."

    These are classic arguments against, and for, shield laws. It is perfectly rational to wage these arguments either in isolation, or in the midst of a court case that has pitted the government against the press. No one has been arguing out of both sides of their mouth.

    Either you believe government ought to have the power to infringe the freedom of the press during criminal investigations by compelling reporters, under penalty of contempt, to do the work that public prosecutors are supposed to do, or you don't. Fine. Make your arguments on those grounds. But stop trying to tangle up Fainaru-Wada and Williams in the question of whether they were complicit in the illegal act of leaking grand jury testimony. It's diversionary and irrelevant, not only to the judge in the Balco case, but to the question of whether shield laws are a good idea.
     
  6. awriter

    awriter Active Member

    It's amazing how many people are backing Dye on this one. ::)
     
  7. DyePack

    DyePack New Member

    Lots of irrelevant and faulty blathering there.

    It's more of the same strategy: Just keep avoiding the argument you'll lose on; keep presenting 15 others to try to obscure that fact; and keep yelling "SHIEEEEEEEEEEELDLAW" with no indication why.

    Your claim that people aren't playing both sides of the fence is simply asinine. Just to recap:

    (1) We NEED a shield law, except when we don't, and then we do.

    (2) The information is public when we want to avoid problems with the law, but it was a great investigative scoop when we want it to be that, too.

    (3) OK, maybe there are no legal grounds to withhold evidence, but it should be allowed because it's important.

    You still don't respond to the same argument I've posted and reposted. That's because you don't have a response. Then you somehow claim "you're right" because you've avoided the argument that's at the heart of the matter.

    You must still be lost in the one, true Game of Shadows.
     
  8. pressboxer

    pressboxer Active Member

    just because we don't have enought DyePack on the first page
     
  9. DyePack

    DyePack New Member

    Oh, I thought someone would be foolish enough to bring the outcome of the game into this argument. Just about every other diversionary tactic has been attempted at this point.

    BTW, I shared pieces of this thread with the euchre crowd after Sunday night's NFL games. They found it humorous that defendants plan to go into court with these arguments.
     
  10. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    While I disagree with you, I think it's great you fellas have a support group.
     
  11. DyePack

    DyePack New Member

    I think it's great journalists believe they can join hands, sing "Kum Ba Yah" (sp.) and somehow the court will rule in their favor.

    Still no response about the main argument here, BTW. Maybe after the singing.
     
  12. zaphod

    zaphod New Member

    Sorry. You've lost me. You've repeated this little line forever, and still I have no idea what you mean. I can't speak for anyone else's arguments on this thread, but I know I never have put forth this line of "reasoning." I have consistently argued in favor of shield laws, under all circumstances. For this point to have any validity, you'll need to produce evidence that I've said . . . whatever it is you think I've said.

    Again, it's nothing I've ever said. Try to find an example of me saying this. You can't.

    What I have argued all along is that there ARE legal grounds to withhold the name of a source (which you label "evidence.") Those legal grounds are called the First Amendment. They are the very grounds upon which the Chronicle attorneys are standing upon in front of the Balco judge. In some states, Legislatures have codified those legal grounds in the form of shield laws. No such law exists in federal statute, but that does not mean "there are no legal grounds." It just means those grounds are the words in the Constitution.

    I never said that, either (I mean, I believe I'm right, but I've never written this statement). If you're going to be convincing, you need to be accurate. And you're going to need to stop talking like a parrot.
     
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