I heard a brief mention about this story on the Terry Gross show "fresh air" last week. This young independent journalist named Josh Wolf has set the record for an American journalist being in prison for refusing to turn over sources. it has to do with a G-8 protest that took place in San Francisco in 2005. The government wants Wolf to name people were shown in his videos, which he sold to network news programs.

I don't know if I'm just out of the loop, but I haven't heard anything about this in any newspaper, or television story. Considering all the hubbub that went on with Judith Miller being imprisoned, I thought the Times and other media outlets would want to carry the story.Am I missing something?

What I know about the story comes from the Democracy Now website. Here's the link:



http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/12/1540208

This story "escaped me" as well. I wonder why his is a federal case.

the reason this is a federal case is because in the video, potesters are seen trying to light a police car on fire (though they fail). This occurs after a police car drives directly into the crowd in an apparent attempt to intimidate protesters (I'm paraphrasing the reporter here).

Now, see if you can follow this reasoning: because the state of California receives federal funds for training in anti-terrorism, all police property in California can be said to have a federally funded component. So by vandalizing a state police car, you're committing a federal crime. Or so says our esteemed Justice Department.

I don't know if I'm just out of the loop, but I haven't heard anything about this in any newspaper, or television story.

It was included in last week's Frontline "Media Wars" installment on PBS.

The producer of that show, Lowell Berman(?) was the guest on Fresh Air. He directed (produced?) the movie about the whistleblower at the major tobacco company that changed the course of the cigarette industry (ever so slightly, I'm afraid).

You can read the Frontine interview with Josh Wolf here.

I can't, because I'm packing to go to Tahoe tomorrow where they've gotten six feet of snow over the past five days ... with another foot expected tonight into tomorrow.