Journalists and Other Children of Privilege

Glenn Reynolds takes 'em down a peg:

Many people would find their jobs easier if they didn't have to respond to those pesky subpoenas. Journalists seem to feel that way: Keeping promises about confidentiality is more important, they tell us, than fulfilling their duty as citizens to testify.
I disagree, especially in those cases of leaked government secrets in which the journalist isn't a disinterested observer but something more like an accomplice. It has certainly seemed that way in the case of leaked information about Valerie Plame. The same news organizations that originally were calling for a no-holds-barred investigation of the leak turn out to know who the leaker is already. They're just not telling.

That's one of the problems with claims to "journalistic privilege." Journalists aren't claiming the right to tell us things we want to know. They're claiming the right to not tell things they'd rather we didn't know.

That's the real problem with the MSM, isn't it? They spend more time preventing stories from getting out these days than reporting them.