Journalists under fire in CIA leak case

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is the defendant but journalism seemed at times to be on trial Wednesday as two reporters were questioned about their methods.

Libby's attorneys asked former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about her spotty memory and former Time reporter Matthew Cooper about his sloppy note-taking and inconsistent handling of confidential sources.

It's exactly what journalism groups feared when the trial began. Roy Peter Clark, an instructor at the Poynter Institute journalism center, predicted when the trial started that it would make both government spin doctors and reporters look bad.

The first part of that prediction came true early in the trial. On Wednesday, journalists had their day.

"If you take that snapshot as representative of the whole industry, it can make us look pretty bad," said Jane Kirtley, a media ethics professor at the University of Minnesota.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent war critic.

Miller and Cooper originally refused to help Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation, but they testified after losing court battles. Miller served 85 days in jail.

Cooper co-authored a July 17, 2003 story entitled "A War on Wilson?" in which he described the Bush administration's response to prominent war critic Joseph Wilson. The story said "some government officials" identified Wilson's wife as a CIA operative.

Cooper identified his two sources as Libby and White House aide Karl Rove. He testified about a July 12, 2003 conversation in which he asked Libby whether Wilson's wife was behind a CIA-sponsored trip to investigate an Iraqi uranium deal.

On Wednesday, Cooper testified that Libby responded with the off-the-record comment, "Yeah, I've heard that too," or "Yeah, I've heard something like that, too."

When questioned, Cooper acknowledged that conversation was off the record — a term reporters normally accept as information that cannot be used in print. Yet Cooper considered it confirmation that could be used.

He also defended the article's headline by noting the question mark at the end.

When Cooper described his conversation with Libby in a later story for Time, Cooper did not say his discussion was off the record. He described it as "background" material that could be used. He acknowledged in court Wednesday that he also changed the wording of Libby's quote for that story.

Cooper also said he didn't take any notes on that exchange or include it in his memo to his editor and fellow reporters.

"I can't explain that," Cooper said. "It was late in the day. I didn't write it down, but it is my memory."

His testimony underscores the fact that reporters do not share a common understanding of what terms such as off-the-record and on background mean.

Clark said cross-examination makes any profession look bad, from emergency room doctors to high school teachers. The craft of journalism, he said, isn't always pretty but that doesn't mean its practitioners are irresponsible.

"In this case," Clark said, "the public will be watching sausage being made."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_trial_journalists [link]