Sometimes journalists must use unnamed sources

We who work in journalism often take for granted the different kinds of source/reporter relationships that arise, both short term — like getting to know the family of a murder victim during a high-profile crime and trial — or long term — like covering a three-term governor or 30-year sitting U.S. senator.

The public is now getting to see some of those relationships up close as the CIA undercover agent leak scandal unfolds in the nation's capital.

And this week we learned that perhaps the most famous print journalist of our generation, The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, had heard that Valarie Plame was an undercover CIA agent several days, if not several weeks, before her name was printed in Bob Novak's national political column and the whole White House/leak investigation started.

Woodward kept his mouth shut, only telling his top editor several weeks ago.

He says flatly that he never told anyone that his "top administrative source" told him about Plame because he never wrote about it and didn't want to be subpoenaed by the special prosecutor once the leak scandal broke.

Woodward's silence during all this stuff — his offer to go to jail for a few days to serve contempt time for the soon-to-be-retired Judith Miller of the New York Times (who did admit to talking to a top White House aide but wouldn't tell a federal grand jury who that was) — is odd.

It turned out Miller's source was "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's much-trusted chief of staff. And the editor for the Times later said Miller's "entanglements" with Libby were inappropriate.

Flash back now to the relatively boring journalism world of Salt Lake City.

I've covered local and state governments here for nearly 30 years. (Orrin Hatch had been in office just two years when I first interviewed him as a cub reporter.)

No one named "Scooter" has ever whispered to me about secret agents or weapons of mass destruction.

Instead, we get campaign finance scandals with nutty husbands stealing from their in-laws.

We get county mayors giving tax dollars to the well-intentioned nonprofits where their daughters work.

But there is one constant between the big-time D.C. scandal and the relatively-honest Utah political system: confidential sources and how you handle them.

Utah is one of the few states that does not have a reporter shield law. Neither does the federal government.

Local media leaders here are working to get (a) a judicial rule promulgated by state court administrators to give some limited source protection and/or (b) a regular Legislature-adopted shield law for reporters.