Editorial: Police raid on reporter's home was an affront to America's free-press ideals
The Washington Post headline was enough to turn any journalist's head: "A reporter declined to reveal his source. Then police showed up at his front door with guns."
Most working journalists at one time or another have weighed whether to go jail to protect a source - just in case the situation were to arise.
But we'd venture few of us could envision what happened to Bryan Carmody in San Francisco.
Carmody, a freelance reporter there, last week awoke to the sound of about 10 police officers breaking down the front gate of his home, the Post reported. They showed him a search warrant and, with guns drawn, searched his house from top to bottom, Carmody told Post reporter Eli Rosenberg.
Journalists, especially those in midsized and larger markets, often deal with leaked information - of both great and minor consequence.
Exposing leaked information can shine a light on crimes and misdeeds and be a benefit to society. It's one of the ways the Fourth Estate can be the watchdog of the other three.
Carmody's home was being raided in connection with a criminal investigation. Two weeks earlier, police investigators went to his home, he told Rosenberg, and politely asked him to identify the source who gave him a confidential police report about the death of the city's public defender that included salacious details about the nature of the victim's bedroom and items found in it. The public defender was known as a watchdog on police misconduct. The leaked information apparently was intended to besmirch his reputation.
Carmody refused to divulge his source the second time and spent more than five hours handcuffed while his home and office were searched.
Did we mention that for all intents and purposes, Carmody is an ambulance chaser? If you've seen the film "Night crawlers," you get the idea. This probably colors your perception of his treatment.
It should not.
The First Amendment ensures press freedoms without concern for the type of reportage people are involved in. Did Carmody's reporting in this case serve any greater good? That's not the issue. The Constitution makes no distinctions. It does not come with a rubric for determining what type of reporting earns "newspapers" certain levels of freedom to do their work.
Reporters somewhat routinely are subpoenaed to provide notes or testify about cases they write about. And attorneys for newspapers routinely argue that newspapers stand by their stories - and that's about the end of it. People generally understand boundaries. In Carmody's case, they did not. And that shouldn't be.