Ethics Corner: Robert Novak Plays 'I've got a Secret' Robert Novak is a prominent presence on the Op-Ed pages of The Washington Post and some 300 other newspapers where he rages against government secrecy. But while Novak spouts off in his syndicated column, he keeps a secret he would not permit any politician to get away with.
By
Allan Wolper
(December 01, 2004) -- Robert Novak is a prominent presence on the Op-Ed pages of The Washington Post and some 300 other newspapers where he rages against government secrecy. But while Novak spouts off in his syndicated column, he keeps a secret he would not permit any politician to get away with.
Novak refuses to say whether he was subpoenaed or if he testified before a grand jury attempting to discover who leaked the name of a CIA agent he identified in his column 15 months ago.
It's an untenable ethical position. "If he has a justifiable reason to withhold that information, he should give a reason why," said Robert Steele, director of ethics at the Poynter Institute of Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. "Otherwise, he is undermining his credibility as an honest broker of ethical journalism. If he were on the other side, he would challenge journalists for not saying anything."
Novak, citing "two senior" Bush administration officials, outed the CIA agent, Valerie Plame, and launched a guessing game that has embroiled Washington ever since. It is against the law to leak the name of an undercover agent, but perfectly legal to publish it.
Novak's punditry on the Washington Post editorial pages gives the impression that the newspaper endorses his close-mouthed behavior, which they apparently do. "Bob Novak has taken a stand that is supported by many in the press," said Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor at the Post (who set the standard for anonymous sources with Deep Throat). "He is protecting his sources. He has done nothing that is illegal or improper."
This is one time I disagree with Woodward. He and Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt should deep-six Novak's column until he comes clean. Hiatt, normally a talkative fellow, had nothing to say about this issue.
While Novak keeps writing, Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus, two of the newspaper's best investigative reporters, succumbed to a subpoena and gave sworn depositions to the special prosecutor. They might have been able to fight off their subpoenas if their lawyers had known whether Novak — who broke the story on the CIA agent — had been called by the grand jury.
The fact is, special prosecutors usually don't start issuing subpoenas to journalists in criminal matters unless the judge believes that's the only way the law enforcement officials can break a case.
Novak has an obligation to own up. Matthew Cooper of Time magazine was found in contempt of court and threatened with a jail term until he agreed to give a sworn deposition. U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, the same judge who found Cooper in contempt, has sentenced Judith Miller of The New York Times to an 18-month prison term unless she tells the court who her sources were in the case, even though she never wrote a story about the CIA saga. She faces jail this month.
Kessler and Pincus of the Post, Cooper, and Tim Russert of NBC all gave sworn depositions after their key source — Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff — waived a confidentiality agreement he had with them.
But that was a very bad excuse to testify. The Bush administration has forced all of its officials to sign waivers with reporters or face possible prosecution themselves.
Which means that all of the above should have told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald to stuff his subpoena. If they had stood together, then perhaps the judge would have thought twice about jailing journalists.
Miller and the New York Times understand the situation very well. Miller has said that she is ready to begin serving her sentence if and when her appeal is denied, which seems very likely given Hogan's previous decisions.
Meanwhile, Novak continues to live a charmed life in journalism, writing his column and appearing regularly on CNN, where he is never challenged.
"I haven't thought it through," says CNN media critic Jeff Greenfield. "I don't want to talk about it, because I have no opinion on it."
Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media writer who hosts "Reliable Sources" on CNN, has discussed Novak's silence on his program several times this year. Kurtz also has written articles on the case.
"This whole thing is really strange," said Jack Nelson, a retired bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times and a founding member of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "Novak was the guy who wrote the column that exposed the CIA agent, and yet they don't seem to be going after him." Allan Wolper
(allanwolper@msn.com)
is a contributing editor to E&P.
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Ethics Corner: Robert Novak Plays 'I've got a Secret'
