Hot Type, for the week of July 15, 2005 -- continued If Fitzgerald were the best friend journalism ever had, he might have decided to do exactly what he's done. He's angered it, shamed it, and awakened it. Plenty of newspaper readers must wonder why other reporters -- at the Times or anyplace else -- didn't do the work of reporters and find out who was feeding the media information about Valerie Plame. If they had, they could have saved Fitzgerald time and Miller anguish. Surely Miller couldn't promise any silence but her own. Or Is It a Double Standard? Four years ago "John Doe" sued the Nebraska town of Plattsmouth over a local park's monument to the Ten Commandments. Doe's ACLU lawyer had asked the court for anonymity to protect his client from reprisals, and no one had any objections. Except, it seems, the Omaha World-Herald. The World-Herald has never cared much for Doe's still-pending suit. Noting in a June 28 editorial that the monument had been a gift of the Fraternal Order of Eagles "40 long years ago," the newspaper commented, "If that acceptance was so egregious, where was the outrage in Plattsmouth before 'John Doe' came along and got the ACLU to demand that it be taken down?" On July 3 the World-Herald carried a long front-page story revealing John Doe's identity. Naming Doe was the main point of the article: there was a picture of the plaintiff and another picture of his car's license plate, ATHEOS, which the paper explained is a "Greek word meaning godless." Doe turned out to be a retired marine who's long been an outspoken foe of anything that to him smacks of state-sponsored religion. A few pages away a World-Herald editorial mourned the lack of a federal shield law protecting reporters who refuse to name sources. "If such a law were in place," the paper reasoned, "Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter, would not be facing prison over who said something that someone didn't like." A Nebraska blogger blew up at the paper's inconsistency. "How hypocritical is that to reveal the identity (and so much more) of a man afraid for his life," marveled Kyle Michaelis, "on the same day they demand reporters be exempted from ever being forced to reveal such things in a criminal investigation. Talk about a power trip -- the World-Herald wants to be judge, jury, and executioner . . . above the law in every way." Well, sure it does. That's the yin and yang of journalism. It's the nature of journalists to reveal, and when disclosure is debated in newsrooms the default position is always to put it out there and see what happens. But it's also the nature of journalists to keep secrets. Knowledge is power, and power is delicious. Besides, keeping secrets protects the flow of revelations. News Bites Thomas Knight, the former Du Page County prosecutor who two months ago lost a defamation suit against the Tribune, didn't fold up his tent. He's asked for a new trial, primarily on the grounds that trial judge Robert Gordon wrongly let the defense "introduce into evidence parts of various media stories . . . which portrayed the plaintiff in an extremely negative light." In other words, Knight claims the Tribune defamed him, then prejudiced the jury with an inadmissible argument that Knight's reputation had already sank so low (thanks to national coverage of the Rolando Cruz prosecution) that nothing could make it go lower. Last December I wrote mournfully about the vanishing of light verse. So credit where it's due: the July/August Poetry has just arrived, and it's billed as the "humor issue." The very first poem rhymes "quote 'em" and "scrotum," an encouraging sign that the editors understood their mission. Send tips, tirades, and comments to hottype@chicagoreader.com Copyright © 2005 Chicago Reader, Inc. All rights reserved.