In a Nutshell

Judith Miller can't catch a break.

When the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), a 50-year-old group of some 1,100 non-fiction independent writers, proposed giving her its "Conscience in the Media" award earlier this week, an uproar started that the ASJA didn't expect. Anita Bartholomew, a freelance journalist who has contributed to Reader's Digest, among others, told E&P she resigned from the nine-member First Amendment Committee rather than give Miller the award because:

"The First Amendment is designed to prevent government interference with a free press. Miller, by shielding a government official or officials who attempted to use the press to retaliate against a whistleblower, and scare off other would-be whistleblowers, has allied herself with government interference with, and censorship of, whistleblowers," Bartholomew wrote in a resignation letter provided to E&P. "When your source IS the government, and the government is attempting to use you to target a whistleblower, the notion of shielding a source must be reconsidered. To apply standard practices regarding sources to hiding wrongdoing at the highest levels of government perverts the intent of the First Amendment."

The ASJA's onine message board was then flooded with opposition e-mail. The status of the award is currently undecided.

Read more at E&P

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