Important...Please read if you're a journalist...

It's an insult to bring those horrors into this at all, but that was the basis for jgmac's original argument, so here we are.

 

and that's what makes the anonymous poster jgmac so much better than the rest of us....

 

But it was a good discussion with very little name calling. I think your discourse about race and steroids and how they're intertwined will be much more provoking. Haven't seen the column on the KC web site yet.

 

It's too late and I'm too tired to go through this tonight. As Shottie said, 21, your comparisons aren't apt.

In fact, I apologize for having tried to raise a counter-argument to tonight's bandwagon phenomenon. All I meant to say was that if you're going to take up the cudgels for sports journalists in this case, you have to take up the cudgels for all journalists everywhere at all times - or the protest isn't meaningful. Or, in fact, particularly sincere.

 

Thirty years ago in high school journalism class, they told us this was a possibility if we became a journalist and that we pretty much had to go to jail rather than reveal a source, but don't worry, we won't be put in with Bubba The Man-Raper. I'm glad I've never had to be inconvenienced this way so far, and I credit the Chron guys for doing the right thing, but they and us knew this is how the game works. And it is a game. The judge and the reporter both know how this goes.

A friend who was a teacher had to go to jail with a bunch of other striking teachers for contempt by not returning to work as ordered. She's a refined upper-middle-class lady who viewed the whole jail thing as an experience and something she had to do. It was kind of a hoot to read the paper and say to my wife, "Hey, look at this, Mary's in jail!"

We're not the only people who get jailed for contempt, and I doubt the judge is going to care who protests.

 

any stance against injustice is meaningful.....

there are people all across the world imprisoned unjustly. your passion -- seems to be -- for incarcerated journalists.... i don't question your sincerity because you ain't fighting for brothers locked up on bogus drug charges.

 

well then kick her news peers in the balls and award sports guys with some badges of honor or some shit.

don't be pissed off at us because of what somebody else did or didn't do and then take it out on us.

 

fuck you bitch. not the purpose of the board.

 

They weren't my comparisons. They were yours. It's incredible to me that you would use captive reporters in oppressive counties as a means to belittle this specific case, but I'm sure it sounded apt to you at the time.

Do we all run the risk of being dragged into court at some point? Yes. Does that make it okay? It does not. This is about colleagues standing up for and supporting colleagues. Why anyone in journalism would look down on that or minimize the impact of this highly visible case is a mystery to me.

 

Shotty, said reporters did not break the law.
The sources who provided the information did. The judge theoretically is using the reporters to try to expose them (knowing full well it's not going to happen). A right-minded judge wouldn't try to pull that.
And JW, you and Telander want to really protest this?
Organize a protest against the judge who is ordering the incarceration. That's the injustice here.

 

I caught this late. Sorry if I'm a bit off.

Whitlock's starting a hunger strike?

I'll join you, Jase.

 

He's right. A couple of people have made the statement, "They broke the law."

Not true.

A judge may decide to hold them in contempt -- or he may not -- it's his discretion. Even if they go to jail (not prison, by the way) for contempt -- they still haven't been convicted of a crime.

To me the injustice is -- there's no federal shield law. If this were a state case in California, they'd be protected. Hell, I think even Alabama has a shield law.

A federal shield law has been talked about-- it simply hasn't gotten done yet-- but I've never gotten the idea that it's as far off as say, legalizing pot. I don't forsee it happening in this administration, but maybe the next...

These guys are doing the right thing. Whatever Telander and Whitlock are doing -- we should all support and applaud them.