Call it a hex, or call it a coincidence, but in the two years since Judith Miller spoke at Syracuse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter’s career has taken more hits than she’d like.

I envy her, too. No matter how much she tries to deny it, the 28-year veteran of The New York Times may well save journalism, just a year after damaging its credibility.

So facing jail time and still embroiled in multiple legal battles that occupy her mind and life, Miller, who knows the frustration of uncooperative sources, graciously conceded 15 minutes of her time yesterday.

‘It’s not (romantic),’ said Miller, who faces up to 18 months in jail for refusing to reveal an anonymous source. ‘Only people who don’t know what jail is like would think it’s romantic. It’s not romantic. I’m not a martyr for journalism.’

Maybe not a martyr, but she is sacrificing for journalism.

Miller is one of two journalists, along with Matt Cooper of Time magazine, who could be imprisoned for protecting their sources. An appeals court ruled Feb. 16 that journalists have no special protection from the First Amendment to protect confidential sources in criminal inquiries.

In layman’s terms, unless Miller breaks her source’s trust, she could face jail time, an unsettling blow to First Amendment advocates.

But what makes Miller’s situation so unique is that she didn’t even publish a story with the unnamed source.

Bob Novak, a syndicated columnist who appears in The Washington Post, did. He off-handedly revealed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, citing two unnamed sources in a 2003 column. Revealing an undercover CIA operative’s identity might be a crime if the disclosure is intended to expose the employee, and if it is done by someone authorized to receive such information in the course of official duties, according to The Washington Post.

Three days after Novak wrote his column, Cooper co-wrote a story on the Time Web site, saying administration officials told Time about Plame’s role in the CIA.

Even though the anonymous source told Miller about Plame, The Times veteran never wrote a word about it.

Now Miller, a Times reporter since 1977, still works and lives as normally as she can while she and Cooper continue filing appeals.

‘I try not to think about the outcome,’ Miller said, ‘and just learn from the process.’

Imagine Miller’s position. Either she can reveal the source and become a pariah as her colleagues outcast her. Or she can stand on principle, suffer jail, pull a thread of appreciation from her colleagues for a short time and then fade into excruciating oblivion until her 18 months expire.

Some choice.

Of course, if the government passes a national shield law – Congressmen Rick Boucher (D.-Va.) and Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) introduced ‘The Free Flow of Information Act of 2005,’ on Feb. 2 – the journalists would be protected.

‘I love journalism even more,’ Miller said. ‘If this situation shows anything, it shows how utterly unpredictable it is. Because every day you can wake up and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that would happen.”

Miller spoke at Syracuse in February 2003, as she was grabbing front-page scoops, detailing Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. Then in July, sans WMDs, Miller wrote that the reason for not finding the weapons was ‘chaos, disorganization, interagency feuds, disputes within and among various military units and shortages of everything from gasoline to soap.’

This set off a firestorm of criticism of Miller and The Times, which eventually conceded its error instead of dumping responsibility on the U.S. Army.

Again, Miller has grabbed the proverbial spotlight, facing jail time for refusing to answer a court subpoena. And the same media that criticized her before is overwhelmingly rallying behind her and Cooper.

Miller said jail won’t change her mind – she’s protecting her source.

In her 28 years at The Times, she’s endured worse. ‘It’s not as tough as being shot at in Beirut,’ she says. But in a time when a recent Knight Foundation survey found that three in four high-schoolers do not appreciate the First Amendment or the rights listed in it, Miller’s and Cooper’s case could have implications on how shielded journalists are in the future.

If she and Cooper keep fighting and win national shield laws, it means great things for young journalists and the free flow of information. If the government fails to grant universal shield laws for journalists and she goes to jail over it, she’ll still protect the trust of anonymous sources.

It’ll be a small victory in itself.

Miller said she thinks journalism will survive. For a woman facing jail for doing nothing more than having functioning ears, she sounds pretty damn upbeat.

‘Heck it’s an extraordinary job,’ Miller said. ‘I’ve never had any doubts about my profession. Well, flying over Afghanistan in a 30-year-old helicopter over mountains, and everyone’s praying, then I had my doubts about it. But other than that, I have no doubts about my profession.’

Scott Lieber is a junior magazine major. E-mail him at smlieber@syr.edu.

Published on February 28, 2005 at 12:00 pm