Jacob Weisberg argues in Slate that Time and the New York Times should disclose everything they know to their readers. Weisberg provides numerous examples of reporters who decided that their duty to report on the actions of their sources outweighed their duty to keep those sources confidential (Oliver North and Linda Tripp make appearances).
Weisberg saves the best for last:
The argument against ever outing sources is instrumental. Insiders won’t leak to the press if they can’t rely on a reporter’s pledge of confidentiality, the argument goes, and so the public’s interest in discovering wrongdoing ultimately won’t be served. This is mostly humbug. As most modern presidents have discovered, leakers are a hardy breed. They act from various motives, of which unalloyed public-spiritedness is probably the rarest. Outing the Plame leakers wouldn’t undermine the use of confidential sources. It would merely put leakers on notice that their right to lie and manipulate the press is not absolute and not sacred.
This article comes at a key moment in this story. Finding out what Miller is hiding is no longer just a matter of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald