SF Chronicles guys sentenced to prison

[justinevans]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were sentenced to a maximum 18 months in prison Thursday, pending an appeal, for refusing to testify about who leaked them secret grand jury testimony from Barry Bonds and other elite athletes.

Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada published a series of articles and a book based partly on the leaked transcripts of the testimony of Bonds, Jason Giambi and others before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a Burlingame-based nutritional supplement company exposed as a steroid ring two years ago.

Federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to send the pair to prison for the full term of the grand jury investigating the leak, or until they agree to testify.

Both sides have agreed to stay the ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White pending an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

[FondestMemory]

i hate those dudes for the book they wrote, but goddamn it's hard not to respect them now.

that takes balls. good for them.

[thejetstolehome]

good for them. very honorable.

[LeftWideOpen]

just another example of how blurred the line has become between the executive and judicial branches.

good for these guys for not giving in ..but it shouldnt have come to this.

[mikeford]

this is a fucking load of dogshit. i cant believe they are seriously jailing them for not revealing their sources. what the fuck has journalism come to in america when we're jailing the reporters instead of the fucking monsters who commit these crimes?

[thejetstolehome]

i miss the days when the first amendment was respected.

[bigmike]

just another example of how blurred the line has become between the executive and judicial branches.

good for these guys for not giving in ..but it shouldnt have come to this.

this is a fucking load of dogshit. i cant believe they are seriously jailing them for not revealing their sources. what the fuck has journalism come to in america when we're jailing the reporters instead of the fucking monsters who commit these crimes?
This pretty much sums up all my thoughts on it.

[justinevans]

It isn't in contempt of court? I don't really know the laws. And I think the case would be different if there source didn't leak a secret testimony.

[mikeford]

doesnt matter. there should be a fucking national shield law to protect journalists and their sources.

[Zeran]

this shit is lame.

[justinevans]

doesnt matter. there should be a fucking national shield law to protect journalists and their sources.

True. I think they should goto jail only if they player pressed charges for libel against them. However, if their source leaked information that was not supposed to be leaked from a testimony of the court (I assume that is some form of crime) they are going to jail because of that and not because they didn't say who their source was. Someone just needs to be held accountable for that and if they don't give up their source, then it would be them. I don't know. I think it is a touchy subject.