NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell says she was contacted by
administration officials after Novak's column ran.
''They tried to point me in the direction of Novak's column,'' she
says.
Wilson says Novak's column was an act of vengeance by the Bush
administration for questioning Bush's remarks about uranium in his
State of the Union address.
Mitchell didn't run with the story because ''in such an instance it
has to be an overriding reason to disclose someone's identity.''
From USA TODAY, 10/2/03:
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20031002/5553225s.htm
Media critics are blasting syndicated columnist Robert Novak's
decision to ''out'' the wife of former diplomat Joseph Wilson as a CIA
operative, saying it violates both journalistic ethics and the law.
But the blame does not end there.
Some wonder why the news media has been so slow to pick up on the
story -- Novak's column appeared July 12 -- and why networks and news
organizations have not disclosed the names of Bush administration
officials who allegedly leaked the name of Wilson's wife, Valerie
Plame, to Novak and other journalists.
After all, they say, such a leak would be a felony, which is why the
Justice Department has launched an inquiry.
''It's a conscience moment for journalists,'' says Columbia University
journalism professor Todd Gitlin.
''The journalistic reflex is to say 'I protect my sources, period. End
of story.' In this case, I think they might want to wonder more deeply
about that hard-and-fast view.''
Novak has been ''almost an unpaid PR person for the administration who
may be facing some jail time'' if he is subpoenaed and refuses to
identify his sources, says Tom McPhail, a University of Missouri
journalism professor.
In his column Wednesday, Novak denied that he was the recipient of a
planned leak, although Newsday quoted him in July as saying:
''I didn't dig it out. It was given to me.''
_________________________________________________________
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the question. It was given to him
by whom?
Harry
.
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