Whats Wrong With Journalism Today

Apparently, l'affaire Woodward is stoking a debate at the Washington Post. I have no idea if these quotes are accurate, but the attitude expressed in this paragraph is common enough:

Now, maybe you make your living with anonymous sources or maybe you don't, but if you do, you know one thing, and that is that you do not reveal your sources when the heat is on or under any other circumstance--when it is politically expedient or when it is economically expedient or when it is journalistically expedient or when it is legally expedient. If your source is the devil, you keep his confidence.

But, as Matthew Yglesias keeps pointing out, that's not what Judy Miller was doing. The prosecutor knew Scooter Libby's identity. She knew the prosecutor knew. She was being asked to corroborate her source's testimony, and she chose to protect her source's perjury. That's highly unethical, even for a journalist.

More widely, why on earth would a journalist say they have a blanket obligation to protect their sources - the NYT has said they reveal sources if the sources lie to them, or end up harming the institution. I'd say Miller's sources did both. So, as the kids say, WTF?