Reporters Fined for Not Giving Sources (Wen Ho Lee)

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-contempt19aug19.story

Reporters Fined for Not Giving Sources
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer

August 19, 2004

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Wednesday held five journalists in contempt of court for refusing to disclose the names of their confidential sources for reports about a nuclear weapons scientist under government investigation in 1999.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the journalists, including a reporter for The Times, to pay fines of $500 a day until each divulges information about his sources to lawyers for Wen Ho Lee, who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The order will not be enforced while it is being appealed.

Jackson's ruling is the second in as many weeks in which a member of the Washington press corps has been found in contempt for failing to disclose confidential sources. At least three similar cases were argued in courts around the country over the last year, media lawyers said.

Lee is suing the Justice and Energy departments, claiming that through a series of news leaks government officials violated his privacy by disclosing personal information that, under the Privacy Act, should not have been revealed. At the time, he had been identified as the only suspect in the alleged theft of U.S. nuclear secrets for China.<snip>

[Q3JR4]

1. Hmmmm...

Yet, Novak is still running around unscathed. Wonder what the political leanings of these reporters are.