admin @ Sun, 2006-09-24 08:00
America has got to stop buying the story being sold by sports figures and politicians that within the Fourth Estate - the media - lie creatures far more vile than themselves.
Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle were told last week they are going to jail for 18 months in the very near future, lest an appeals court overturn the court's ruling. The crime they committed, according to the court, does not involve false tales of Barry Bonds and others allegedly using steroids. Nor does it involve stories of sex, lies and audiotape spearheading an investigation into Major League Baseball.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams' crime involves publishing leaked testimony to a federal grand jury while refusing to reveal the government official who, presumably, gave the information to them.
So to put it plainly, the federal government can't shine its own shoes let alone clean its own house, and because Fainaru-Wada and Williams won't embrace janitorial duties on government property, they are no different than liars, thieves, or anyone else trapped behind bars.
For those who are quick to look at the writers' punishment and say, "We're not suffering, it's only you guys in the media," that kind of thinking falls under the categories of oblivious and stupid.
Understand something right now: No journalist is better than his sources, specifically the credible information that any source provides. The world we live in, rife with ramifications that jeopardize one's livelihood on a daily basis - if not one's life on occasion - does nothing short of establish the importance of having sources in the first place.
At some point, the truth must be allowed to be revealed without severe reprisals. Particularly from those who'd make pathological liars look honest.
Any journalist without sources is a journalist without information, which translates into the public having little to no information with which to draw their own conclusions, to decide who their heroes are.
There's no Watergate scandal involving President Richard Nixon if there are no sources. There's no blue dress and Monica Lewinsky if sources weren't lamenting the behavior of President Bill Clinton. And just like you'd know nothing about locker-room chatter or who's being traded next week, you'd know nothing about Pete Rose gambling or steroids contaminating baseball, either.
Why the fury when we feel deceived? We take umbrage with being lied to, with being led down a path of manipulation, and our desire for retribution often stems from the lies told to us in the aftermath more than the acts committed.
Some of us may have lamented the book's existence. We may not have liked some bitter ex-girlfriend providing intimate details of Bonds' escapades. But who among us doubted its veracity? Specifically after hearing so little from Bonds?
When you're accused of things Bonds was accused of, both in the Chronicle and Game of Shadows, and the only lawsuit you can come up with is an attempt to prevent the authors from making money, you might as well give it up. Nobody's trying to hear what you're saying.
Considering what has been reported about Bonds, Fainaru-Wada and Williams should have a jail cell waiting for them - if they lied. Except no one's questioning the truth here. Just how it was acquired.
This is cache, read story here