Slashdot Mirror
Newspapers Cut Wikileaks Out of Shield Law
An anonymous reader writes "The US press has been pushing for a (much needed) federal shield law, that would allow reporters to protect their sources. It's been something of a political struggle for a few years now, and things were getting close when Wikileaks suddenly got a bunch of attention for leaking all those Afghan war documents. Suddenly, the politicians involved started working on an amendment that would specifically carve out an exception for Wikileaks so that it would not be covered by such a shield law. And, now, The First Amendment Center is condemning the newspaper industry for throwing Wikileaks under the bus, as many in the industry are supporting this new amendment, and saying that Wikileaks doesn't deserve source protection because 'it's not journalism.'"
A sports reporter tweeted on Monday (this week or last week, i'm getting this second hand) that a ballplayer's suspension would be 5 games instead of 4.
Numerous outlets picked it up and ran it as news.
Thing is, he made it up. Deliberately. To demonstrate how many news outlets do zero confirmatory investigation before running stories.
So what did his employer do?
Fired him.
I.e., it's going to get worse before it gets better.
A lot longer than that, if you believe/read Chomsky. Challenging the wrong people is a career damaging move.