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I know a lot of reporters certainly will go to jail to defend confidential sources. Some have even gone to jail for an issue like this. But I can't say that's the norm.

If there's anything that's important to a reporter, it is integrity. It is credibility.

Inventing sources is not a crime in and of itself, although it certainly violates every code of journalistic ethics known to man. A criminal fraud case would require that the reporter's deceit had been malicious and resulted in financial gain.

It's always unfortunate when a reporter is sent behind bars for failing to turn over sources. There's no way to say what the long-term outcome will be.

I thought that was the crown jewel of the reporter's resume - to actually go to jail protecting a source.

Any journalist worth his or her salt wouldn't trust me.

The increasing legal pressure against archives has created anxieties among researchers, librarians, and journalists. They cite the need to protect sources who wish to make a record for posterity; procuring documents and interviews from those sources will be difficult if the fruits are only one subpoena away from disclosure.

A journalist can make or break a case, in a way, because they can figure out things the police can't, or they can destroy people's lives.

Sometimes, in a fictional story, you can be more honest and truthful, actually. As a journalist, you're a prisoner of the data, in effect. You have to tell the story with evidence you can verify.

If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it's really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources.