Oxford Police Department v. The Daily Mississippian
An interesting story today from The Daily Mississippian's (DM) Paul Quinn, who has just started his own blog while the DM is taking a finals break. Paul explains how the DM and fellow reporter Victoria Howell have taken a stand against revealing notes and sources to the Oxford Police Department (OPD) in an ongoing investigation into an April 25th traffic accident. An excerpt:
Paul's full story, which I recommend, is here. He goes on to explain that after seeking legal counsel, the DM chose not to provide OPD with any information, and are now waiting to see what will happen and hoping the OPD will "back down". This is an interesting read, and brings to mind the high profile jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller who refused to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of the name of then undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. Certainly this case would not warrant such drastic action by our local courts, but it is interesting just the same. I trust that Paul will keep us informed as this story develops.
The day our story ran a lieutenant sent me a text message asking if I could help him get with Ms. Howell. When I talked with her and the DM advisor’s they told Victoria not to speak with the police. We did not want our sources to think that we are an arm of the law, but that we are can be trusted by our sources.
After explaining, via text, to the officer she could not help the investigation I was informed OPD would get a grand jury subpoena in order to obtain the information they wanted...
Paul's full story, which I recommend, is here. He goes on to explain that after seeking legal counsel, the DM chose not to provide OPD with any information, and are now waiting to see what will happen and hoping the OPD will "back down". This is an interesting read, and brings to mind the high profile jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller who refused to testify to a grand jury investigating the leak of the name of then undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. Certainly this case would not warrant such drastic action by our local courts, but it is interesting just the same. I trust that Paul will keep us informed as this story develops.
I have an update on this story.
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Check out Paul's update here . He reports that the DM and OPD have arrived at a stalemate for now - this seems like the result of reasonable cooperation on both sides. Good job Paul.
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