I thought we did a piece this week which really illustrates Weekend America's commitment to have intelligent conversation on the show. It was the Supreme Court segment, where we brought to a conclusion our series about who should be nominated as the next Supreme Court Justice. Of course, neither former movie studio head Sherry Lansing nor economist Steven Levitt are realistic choices -- but by selecting them, the audience and we opened up the thinking process about what qualities are important in a Supreme Court Justice. This whole piece has an intelligence to it – it is great conversation, pairing two very different people and unlikely sources of opinions on this subject. This is an example of how great hosts/hostesses "populate" great dinner parties. This was, as Lansing said, “fun.”

Jim Russell
Executive Producer

Our major story this week was on "Protecting Sources" – and the fact that New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time Magazine report Matt Cooper are being ordered to reveal their sources but are refusing, in a case that seems headed for the Supreme Court.

The issue is an important one to journalists who feel that if they can’t keep their promises to sources -- that they will remain confidential -- sources will decline to talk with them in the future. Reporters claim a privilege not unlike that of priests and doctors …- that information they receive and sources who reveal it are confidential, and that the press is so important to democracy that reporters need to have that privilege. And, as former New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell, whom we interviewed, said, “We represent the public. We’re not policemen. We’re not an arm of law enforcement.”

There is another side of this issue, passionately held by law enforcement officers. Legal authorities say that journalists are not immune from the law and cannot place themselves above the law. These people think that if journalists know facts and people that would help convict a criminal, they have the same obligation as any citizen – to provide that information to the police.

Once again, as with most tough issues, there isn’t an easy black and white, right or wrong. Instead, there is a conflict of two values. Which one do you side with?

Jim Russell
Executive Producer

PS: If you’d like to read more about reporters’ privilege, here are some sites worth checking out:

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000891682
http://www.rcfp.org/privilege/
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=80951
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2005/04/reporters_privi.html

I like to pick stories we do, to discuss how we did them. This week, it is our interview with the Mother and the Fireman, and the little girl who was in that famous frontpage picture with the Fireman after the Oklahoma City bombing. Oklahoma City, A Decade Later

Bill Radke’s intro had me riveted to the interviews, but I can’t decide whether this piece contributed to my understanding, or whether it just let me wallow -- like a voyeur -- in a woman’s still-raw grief. Is this a story that we ought to have done – did it serve some valuable purpose or was it just a “media event” like a made-for-TV movie? I am troubled by this piece … not in the way we handled it, which was excellent and sensitive … but by whether we should have done it at all. While we really do want to get very close to people we talk to and about in our show, does there need a socially valuable purpose for doing so … to avoid mere voyeurism? If so, did this piece pass the test?

Jim Russell
Executive Producer

The rains had paused, but everything felt water-logged and the low-hanging clouds turned the late afternoon into dusk. I arrived at La Conchita just a few hours after a cliff gave way during the January downpours and buried the better part of a quiet neighborhood. It was a standard media emergency scene, frantic and melancholy. I scurried around like everyone else looking for someone knowledgeable to talk to. That's when I met two strikingly articulate young rescuers, Jennifer and Janelle.

There were more than a hundred fire and rescue trucks from up and down the Southern California coast, and lots of guys with shovels and heavy equipment. For the most part they seemed to be shoveling the cement-like mud for a few hours then taking breaks. It seemed directionless.

When you produce a program that isn't really intended to be a news program, it is hard to know what to do when a big news story comes along – such as the death of the Pope. On the one hand, you simply cannot ignore it: that is not fair to the audience. On the other hand, listeners have been inundated by every other medium – they may well look to us for a reprieve from the news, especially when there really isn't "new" news. For a program such as Weekend America, my question is always, "What new insight can we bring to the story?" How can we provoke thinking in a new way that helps enlighten a story? This is an example of our "journalism of ideas?" Did we accomplish this? Let us know what you think?