New York Times journalist James Risen could face prison for refusing to reveal his source for a story about a botched CIA operation intended to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
“You cannot conduct aggressive investigative reporting without confidential sources. Whistleblowers have to reveal things that can threaten their career or their livelihood because everything is secret and classified [and] in order to talk about almost anything important in national security or the war on terror, people have to take risks in order to tell the truth about what’s going on.
We as reporters have to be willing to provide confidentiality in order to receive that information and report on that information and tell the American people what’s really happening. If we don’t have the ability to maintain confidential sources and protect our sources, then people won’t be willing to talk to us and we won’t be able to find out what the government is doing.”
Photo Caption: A 4000-page petition with 100,000 signatories who support New York Times reporter James Risen sits on a step ladder before being delivered to the U.S. Justice Department August 14, 2014 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)