The Reid Hall Times
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A sort-of quarterly publication of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications
Spring 2009 _________________________________________________________________________
Hello again from your former mentors and tormentors in Reid Hall. After a long, cold but mostly dry winter, that special Valley of Virginia spring has sprung. A typical April – snow flurries one week, high 80s the next – has yielded to the delights of Alumni Weekend and the accelerating pace as we approach Commencement.
Our seniors have launched their job searches with a vengeance. Interestingly, given the parlous state of the economy, the job market does not look that bad so far. You’ll find a story below about an SPJ-sponsored job workshop we held recently. I thank all of you for your continued willingness to help our grads with counseling, job leads and sometimes outright offers. Bless you. As you know, once they have a foot in the door our grads add immeasurably to any shop.
Our lead story this time describes Ron MacDonald’s posthumous induction into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame. Many of you first saw news of his selection and induction on the department’s Web site, journalism.wlu.edu. Our nomination of Ron bore with it numerous letters of support from his former students and colleagues. One selection committee member, seeing that support, called Ron’s election “a slam dunk.”
Please enjoy this edition of The Reid Hall Times, and if you know a J-alum who isn’t getting his or her newsletter, please forward this, or let us know his or her e-mail address so we can send along an e-copy of The Reid Hall Times. Again, as always, you can also keep up with department news at our Web site, journalism.wlu.edu.
Cheers,
Brian Richardson
Department Head
Va. Communications Hall of Fame
inducts MacDonald posthumously
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Ron MacDonald |
The late Ronald H. MacDonald, who taught journalism and mass communications at Washington and Lee for more than three decades, was inducted into the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame April 2.
“Ron received many professional congratulations and awards during the span of his career, but none would have exceeded this one,” his widow, Pat MacDonald Irons, told about 150 people at the induction ceremony at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond. They included nine former colleagues and friends from Washington and Lee. Four former students of MacDonald were in attendance.
“For those of you who knew Ron, you knew that he was not one to seek recognition just for its own sake,” Irons told the gathering. “His search was for excellence in journalism. He achieved that goal in his broadcasting career, but the opportunity to teach journalism at W&L gave him the challenge to pass on his journalistic ethics and methods to younger minds. “
MacDonald, who died in July 2008, was one of five people elected – and the only elected posthumously – for induction this year into the Hall of Fame.
MacDonald arrived at W&L in 1969 after nearly two decades as a broadcast journalist. For 13 years he was a reporter, news director and anchor at WDBJ Channel 7 in Roanoke, where he led the station to three Douglas Southall Freeman Awards for public service and five Best News Operation of the Year citations from the Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters.
His impact on journalism education at W&L was immediate and substantial. He greatly expanded news coverage at WLUR-FM, the radio station operated by the Journalism Department, and demanded professional standards of its student reporters and program hosts. For several years the station was the Lexington community’s only daily source of local news.
MacDonald also introduced a television news curriculum and regular television broadcasts to the campus. For many years, he also coordinated the department’s internship program, supervising more than 700 interns.
“Many [of his former students] credited him with having a huge impact on their lives and their professional accomplishments,” Irons said.
2009 Pulitzer Prize winner
to join J-faculty for Fall
Caesar Andrews, one of the Detroit Free Press staff that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, is the newest Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications.
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Caesar Andrews |
Andrews, who recently left as executive editor of the Free Press to pursue his longtime interest in education, will join the department for the 12-week Fall Term. He will teach Editing for Print Media and a course of his own design, Covering Classic Journalism.
His professorship is made possible by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.
“Caesar Andrews is well-known in the industry for his enlightened and energizing leadership,” said Department Head Brian Richardson. “And now the Pulitzer jury has recognized his commitment to superior journalism and serving his community. We are delighted that our students will be taught by a journalist of his stature.”
Said Andrews: "Washington and Lee has an impressive journalism program. I am excited about spending a semester there and working closely with the next generation of journalists."
The Pulitzer Prize recognized the Free Press staff, especially reporters Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick, “for a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise….”
According to the Pulitzer Web site, the Free Press uncovered “a pattern of lies by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that included denial of a sexual relationship with his female chief of staff, prompting an investigation of perjury that eventually led to jail terms for the two officials.” The prizes were announced April 20.
Andrews has been an editor and manager for nearly 30 years in a wide range of newsrooms – from a local weekly in Cocoa, Fla., to the launch of USA TODAY. He has worked in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan and Washington, D.C., all part of Gannett Co.
In addition to three years as executive editor at the Free Press, he served as editor of the Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C. for eight years. In that capacity he directed coverage of news from the nation’s capital during the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
He has also served as a board member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and as president of the Associated Press Managing Editors. During his 2002 term as APME president, an annual award was established recognizing outstanding diversity efforts in U.S. newsrooms – the Robert C. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership.
Andrews is a frequent discussion leader at industry conferences, seminars and workshops on quality journalism, ethical decision-making, management, diversity and motivation. He taught journalism at Grambling State University, his alma mater, during a one-year leave.
Over the years, he has also participated in student outreach targeting future journalists. He has also been active in the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. He was a member of the reaccreditation team that visited Washington and Lee two years ago.
He has also been recognized with awards from both the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and from the Black College Communication Association – both for contributions to diversity.
The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.
Students bring home seven awards
from SPJ Region II competition
Washington & Lee journalism students earned seven awards – with an unprecedented three winners – in the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Region II annual collegiate journalism competition.
Winners of the Mark of Excellence Awards were The Rockbridge Report, http://rockbridgereport.wlu.edu/ , the converged news Web site of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications; Jacob Geiger, for his editorials in the independent student-run Ring-tum Phi, and Alex Scaggs, for her feature profile of a former POW published in Take Two!, the department’s single-issue magazine for 2008. Geiger is a senior print journalism major and Scaggs is a business journalism major.
W&L also earned three second-place and one third-place awards.
“We are delighted that the hard work and boundless talents of our students and faculty have been recognized in this way,” said Department Head Brian Richardson. “Seven awards is unprecedented for us, and is an especially impressive result against the much larger journalism programs in our region.”
It was the third win in the last four years in Region II for The Rockbridge Report, a weekly Web site through which W&L’s journalism classes cover local news. It won in the category of “Best All-Around Independent Online Student Publication.” Independent online means it is not the Web site of a campus paper.
The Rockbridge Report has also been a national runner-up in two of the last three years.
W&L’s three Region II winners this year will compete against the winners in their categories from the other 11 regions for the national Mark of Excellence Awards. The national winners, runners-up and third place entries will be announced in mid-May. They will be honored at the national SPJ conference in Indianapolis on Aug. 28.
The 2008 Region II runners-up from W&L are the student magazine inGeneral, in the Best Student Magazine category; Election Day ’08 coverage in The Rockbridge Report, http://journalism.wlu.edu/rrarchive/11-04-2008-Final/ , in the Online News Reporting category, and “Funding the Silver Tsunami,” http://journalism.wlu.edu/indepth/2008/Elder/index.html , a Rockbridge Report project on the local costs of retirement for baby-boomers, in the Online In-Depth Reporting category.
Students who produced the multimedia “Silver Tsunami” project for last spring’s In-Depth Reporting journalism capstone course were Melissa Caron, ’09, Megann Daw ’08, Kat Greene, ’08 and Drew Scarantino, ’09. The third-place award went to Take Two!, which showcases the work of students in the spring ’08 Magazine Feature Writing class.
Three W&L journalism students attended the Region II conference and awards luncheon Mar. 28 at Marymount University with Prof. Doug Cumming, the SPJ chapter advisor.
W&L’s chapter began in 1920s. SPJ was founded as Sigma Delta Chi 100 years ago this month. With professional chapters and student chapters, it is the largest and oldest professional society for journalists.
Majors lead winning W&L team
as Ethics Bowl debates journalism
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Members of the winning Ethics Bowl team -- Alex Weber, second from left, Alisha Laventure, Melissa Caron and Alex Scaggs, pose with Roger Mudd '50, left, and Juan Austin of tournament sponsor Wachovia. (photo by Patrick Hinely) |
Students from Washington and Lee University, including three majoring in Journalism and Mass Communications, won the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges’ 10th annual Ethics Bowl competition Feb. 9.
This year’s topic for the competition was Ethics and Journalism. The three journalism majors are Melissa Caron ’09, of Effingham, N.H.: Alisha Laventure, ’09, of Long Island, New York; and Alexandra Scaggs ’09, of West Chester, Pa. Caron, Laventure and Scaggs have all taken the department’s pioneering Journalism Ethics course, taught by Knight Professor Ed Wasserman.
The fourth team member, Alex Weber ’09, is a physics-engineering and politics major who is also in the Shepherd Program for the study of poverty. Weber participated in a Spring Term ’07 course and trip to China co-led by journalism faculty member Pam Luecke.
The Ethics Bowl team was coached by Profs. James Mahon and Paul Gregory of the university’s Philosophy Department. They were assisted by journalism professors Doug Cumming and Indira Somani, and by Tom Mattesky, this term’s Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor in the department. Mattesky, ’74, is retired bureau chief with CBS News in Washington. Wasserman is on sabbatical this semester in Argentina.
“We are pleased and proud of our students,” said Journalism Department Head Brian Richardson. “We are also deeply grateful to our Philosophy Department colleagues, Profs. Mahon and Gregory, for their tireless work organizing the competition and coaching Washington and Lee’s participants. ”
The 15 member schools of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges participate annually in the two-day tournament. The site of the competition rotates among the schools. Washington and Lee played host to the competition this year. The competition each year focuses on one of several topics in applied professional ethics.
The Foundation this year honored Roger Mudd ’50, a founder of the Ethics Bowl. Mudd is a veteran broadcast journalist who worked for CBS News, NBC News, PBS and The History Channel. Among the other members of the Ethics Bowl Committee is Margaret Warner, senior correspondent with the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. Warner also acted as a judge.
Washington and Lee’s program in teaching journalism ethics was begun in 1974 by Professor Emeritus Louis W. Hodges and the late Prof. Ron MacDonald. They established one of the first journalism ethics courses in the nation.
In 1996 an endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation established the Knight Professorship and Program in Journalism Ethics. Hundreds of journalism majors have taken the required Journalism Ethics course as part of their majors.
Seniors get upbeat message
from J-faculty about jobs
The last three months have been grim ones in the journalism industry, as major layoffs have been followed by bankruptcy filings at the Tribune Co., Minneapolis’ Star-Tribune and the owners of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. To add insult to injury, the 160-year-old Rocky Mountain News closed its doors Feb. 27 in Denver.
But the atmosphere was cheerful in the Washington and Lee journalism department the night of Feb. 25 as more than 20 students – mostly juniors and seniors – gathered at a Society of Professional Journalists meeting to get some advice from the faculty on finding a job in today’s tough market. The free pizza probably didn’t hurt the mood, either.
“I think it was a positive spin on the doom and gloom you hear so much of,” student SPJ Chapter President Melissa Caron ’09 said. “The professors were able to give us a lot of different options.”
And despite the bad news at the top of the industry, the faculty reported that their research over the past few weeks had turned up some surprisingly good news. There are still jobs out there in today’s industry.
Wire services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters-Thompson are all expanding their services (and therefore hiring), especially in the field of financial news – which, for obvious reasons, is suddenly in high demand. TV stations still need young, ambitious reporters and are especially interested in hiring people who can shoot and edit video while also contributing to the station’s Web site.
“Stations said they want people who know the Web and can work the Web,” Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor Tom Mattesky told the students.
Mattesky, an alumnus who recently retired from CBS News’ Washington bureau, also said that mid-size stations are increasingly interested in hiring graduates straight out of college. Stations in Roanoke and Lynchburg, the 67th largest TV market in the country, are among those.
One key, Mattesky and other professors said, is a willingness to be flexible and consider taking a job in a small town or a place you’ve never been before.
Prof. Indira Somani said she and several other students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism went on road trips right before graduation, visiting several cities to meet with TV news directors, producers or editors. Along the way, they dropped off tapes and résumés and got a chance to make sure they wouldn’t be just another name in a pile when the candidates were reviewed.
Somani also said she got several jobs in the course of her career by visiting conventions or conferences where news professionals gathered. Those meetings can get you into the same room with people from hundreds of news outlets, and plenty of people in those rooms are bound to be looking to fill an open position.
Because this year’s job forum was aimed mostly at current seniors, SPJ and the department have decided to hold the event annually.
-- Jacob Geiger ’09
Reynolds faculty members
address future of news
Two prominent former journalists now on the faculty of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications offered sobering views on the future of the news industry recently.
“Simply put, journalism desperately needs your help,” Tom Mattesky, retired deputy bureau chief for CBS News in Washington, told students in the department in a public lecture March 4.
In the past 25 years, Mattesky said, “journalism has stumbled, bumbled and even misled. Fabrication and plagiarism have rocked this industry from its smallest outlets to its celebrated titans. The watchdogs of the opinion-makers have become the lapdogs of their own agendas, and the search for the truth too often has been lost in the process.”
But Mattesky said the students he has seen this term make him hopeful about the industry’s future.
In a separate address March 6, Locy described her ordeal as a reporter for USA Today after a federal judge ordered her to reveal the names of confidential sources or face fines of up to $5,000 a day.
“In post-9/11 America, where secrecy is an epidemic, we need government insiders now more than ever to tell reporters how public officials are using their vast powers,” Locy said. “Without their help, the public will never learn about government abuse or corruption.”
Locy called for passage of a federal shield law that would protect reporters from revealing confidential sources under most circumstances.
Mattesky was the department’s Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor during Winter Term. Locy is the department’s Donald W. Reynolds Professor of Legal Journalism. Both appointments are underwritten by grants from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.
Locy’s speech was the keynote address of the department’s 47th Institute on the Ethics of Journalism. The institutes are made possible by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Three Reid Hall seniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa
Three seniors in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications have been named to membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
Rebecca Bratu, of Arad, Romania, Melissa Caron, of Effingham, N. H., and Hilary Craig, of Georgetown, Ky., will be initiated into the prestigious academic honorary society on March 12.
“We are very proud of our three newest initiates,” said Department Head Brian Richardson, himself a former president of the campus chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. “They continue the long tradition of honoring the life of the mind that has characterized the department.”
A fourth current Journalism and Mass Communications major, Jacob Geiger ’09, of Overland Park, Kan., was initiated in 2008 as a junior. Besides producing numerous members of Phi Beta Kappa over the years, the department boasts the university’s most recent Rhodes Scholar, Pat Lopes Harris ’91, who majored in Journalism and Politics.
In addition to majoring in Journalism and Mass Communications, Caron has a concentration in Poverty and Human Capability Studies, Bratu has a double major in German, Craig in Psychology and Geiger in History.
Historic presidential election focus
of Reid Hall Election Night coverage
At 1:30 a.m. Nov. 5, Brian Richardson, head of W&L’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communications; Michael Todd, digital media specialist; and journalism student Jane Lee ’09 finally left W&L’s election night newsroom.
Lee was among three dozen students, overseen by nine faculty and staff , who had produced three iterations of The Rockbridge Report Web site, two live television broadcasts and a four-page broadsheet newspaper, all on deadline. (See http://journalism.wlu.edu/rrarchive/11-04-2008-Final/ )
Journalism students had been at local voting places all day, with more at local Democratic and Republican headquarters, the victory party locations for both parties, local watering holes and at other locations for voter reaction. The result was live studio and phone interviews with party officials and local elections experts, and informative graphics and slide shows. They also produced several rewrites and updates of key stories for print, broadcast and the Web site throughout the evening.
Richardson was impressed by the professionalism shown and the dedication to the task at hand.
“Every year, as election night winds down,” he said, “I think for a minute about all the newsrooms I've been in on election night through the years, and I realized that I have never felt prouder or more honored to have been a part of an election night newsroom than I was last night.
“As journalists, we are never more crucial to the audiences and the democracy we serve than when we show those audiences the results of their participation in self-governance. Last night, everyone did a superb job serving our local audience. My deepest gratitude and heartiest congratulations to all involved.”
USA Today’s Biskupic
discusses justices’ legacies
Joan Biskupic, USA Today’s Supreme Court reporter, shared her insights into the nation’s highest court with Washington & Lee students during a speech March 18.
Biskupic discussed the distinctive personalities and dueling legacies of two of history’s most intriguing justices, Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia.
Biskupic, who has been following, reporting on and writing about the Supreme Court for 20 years, wrote a biography of O’Connor, “Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court became Its Most Influential Justice.” It was published in 2005.
She is finishing a book about Scalia that is scheduled for publication later this year.
J-senior works in online group’s newsroom
For the fourth year in a row, a student in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications worked in the student newsroom at the Online News Association’s annual conference.
Jess Ramos, a senior from Vancouver, Wash., traveled to Washington, D.C. the second weekend in September to report on the conference. She was one of 17 students selected from universities around the nation. She was encouraged to apply by Associate Professor of Journalism Claudette Artwick, who oversaw the ONA student newsroom in 2005 and 2006.
“Instead of simply attending panels, I was reporting on them,” Ramos said. “I was standing in the back with my notepad, scribbling as much information as I could at the seminar about a Web site’s redesign process. [At another session] I was typing furiously on my laptop as I tried to understand … media lawyers.”
Working under mentors, students produced a Web site each day of the conference. (See http://journalists.org/2008conference/archives/001255.php)
“I realized that though we can have whatever new technology at our fingertips, we are journalists first,” Ramos said. “What truly mattered were the questions we asked ourselves and our sources and the analysis involved in synthesizing information into something understandable, clear and relevant.”
Ramos spent last summer interning at the Fairfax County Times in Reston, Va. She also enjoys designing Web sites and graphics while developing new ways to tell stories online. After graduation she will begin a postgraduate internship working on the Web site of KATU-2 in Portland, Ore.
Media-law symposium features distinguished lineup
Late in October, as he looked over a schedule for W&L’s second annual Donald W. Reynolds Media-Law Symposium, Dean of the Law School Rodney Smolla said, “This promises to be one of the most exciting programs of the year.”
The lineup of distinguished speakers who convened for the two-day symposium Nov. 14-15 bore Smolla’s observation out. The symposium was a cooperative effort of the School of Law and the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications.
The Law School invited Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean of the new law school at the University of California, Irvine, and a nationally known expert in constitutional law; and the Hon. Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a well-known free-speech advocate and a name on several short lists for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Journalism Department brought in Jim Brady, vice president and executive editor of the Washington Post’s online division, Washingtonpost.com; John Harris, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Politico newspaper and website Politico.com; and Jeanne Cummings, the chief lobbying and money correspondent at Politico and, formerly a political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
“The Wild, Wild Web: Free Speech, Libel, and the First Amendment in the Digital Age" was the theme of the symposium, which opened on Friday morning with a moot court exercise conducted by Dean Smolla. After Smolla “swore in” the audience as temporary Supreme Court members, he argued each side of a hypothetical case involving libel, invasion of privacy and a Web site he dubbed “Sleazycampus.com.” The “Supreme Court” reached a split decision.
The rest of the day featured presentations by Chemerinsky, Kozinski, Brady and Harris, who all fielded questions from the audience.
The symposium continued Saturday morning with a panel discussion featuring Cummings, Smolla and Robert Strong, associate provost at W&L and Wilson Professor of Politics. The panel, moderated by Brian Richardson, head of the Department of Journalism Department, tackled the subject “Can They Say That?: Protections and Political Speech on the Web.”
With presidential politics still dominating the national conversation, it’s not surprising that the panelists touched on such subjects as campaign strategy, John McCain’s comment that “the economy is fundamentally sound,” and Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe.
The symposium was held in the Law School’s Millhiser Moot Court Room and all sessions were open to the public. The symposium was made possible by a grant from The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.
The Foundation has awarded more than $4 million to the university’s Journalism Department to establish professorships in business journalism and legal reporting, to fund summer internships in business and political journalism, and to enhance interdisciplinary teaching programs in business, law and journalism.
Students, professor attend Supreme Court arguments
Journalism students Stephanie Hardiman and Jacob Geiger went to Washington Nov. 12 with Reynolds Professor of Legal Reporting Toni Locy to attend arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving the First Amendment and capital punishment.
Locy, who covered the Supreme Court for The Associated Press, tapped contacts on her former beat to introduce the students to reporters who cover the nation's highest court. They included Lyle Denniston, who works for SCOTUSblog, Mark Sherman of the Associated Press, Jim Vicini of Reuters and Pete Williams of NBC News. The justices also did not disappoint: They peppered lawyers with incisive questions and tested their answers with often witty, pointed follow-ups.
Locy also took the students to USA Today's Washington bureau, where among the reporters they met were Joan Biskupic, who covers the Supreme Court, Kevin Johnson, who covers criminal justice issues, and Pete Eisler, an investigative reporter. Locy has also worked for USA Today covering the Justice Department.
Locy and her students had dinner Tuesday night with Kathy Kiely, who covers politics for USA Today, Margi Mannix, executive editor of U.S. News & World Report, and Dierdre Hester, a researcher assigned to cover the Supreme Court for CBS News. They also visits the Newseum.
Appeals court vacates contempt order against Locy
A federal appeals court has vacated a lower judge’s contempt order against the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications’ Reynolds Professor of Legal Reporting, 
Toni Locy, arising from stories she wrote when she was working for USA Today.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. issued the brief unsigned ruling Nov. 17. Locy had been cited for contempt for refusing to reveal sources she used in stories about the government’s investigation of former Army scientist Steven Hatfill.
Toni Locy
Unidentified sources told several reporters, including Locy, that Hatfill was a possible suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people. In 2002 then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft called Hatfill a “person of interest” in the investigation.
Hatfill sued, alleging that FBI agents violated his privacy by leaking information to reporters about the government's investigation into the anthrax attacks. On March 7, in response to a motion by Hatfill’s lawyers, Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered Locy to reveal her sources or pay up to $5,000 a day in fines from her own pocket. Four days later a higher court granted a stay while Locy appealed the ruling.
In that appeal, Locy urged the court to decide her case. But last summer Hatfill and the government settled the case for $5.8 million, and Hatfill asked the court to dismiss Locy’s appeal. The appeals court granted Hatfill’s motion, saying that because the case had been settled there was no reason to rule on whether Locy should be allowed to protect her sources. The court also vacated the contempt order against her.
“I am grateful that the court of appeals vacated the draconian contempt citation against me,” Locy said. “But I remain concerned that the case is not over, given recent statements in court by Dr. Hatfill's lawyers that they intend to come after me to pay Dr. Hatfill's legal bills. The appeals court did not address this issue directly, and we must now wait to see whether Dr. Hatfill's lawyers follow through on their threat.”
“My colleagues and I are pleased and relieved that Prof. Locy no longer faces a contempt citation,” said Journalism Department Head Brian Richardson. “But it is unfortunate that the appeals court passed up an opportunity to affirm the necessity for reporters to be able to protect the identity of confidential sources.
“As reporters pursue their societal obligation to monitor our powerful institutions, their sources need to know that their identities can be protected when necessary,” Richardson said.