Sir, - We wish to register our strong protest at the attempts by the British authorities in Northern Ireland to force the Northern Editor of the Sunday Tribune, Ed Moloney, to surrender his notes on a story he wrote in his newspaper concerning allegations of state collusion in the murder 10 years ago of the Belfast lawyer Patrick Finucane. The authorities are threatening Mr Moloney with imprisonment in an effort to make him identify and give evidence in court against a source for his story. The distinction between news reporting and police evidence-gathering is central to the work that all journalists do. This attempt to undermine that separation is a grave threat to the independence of reporting. It is our duty as journalists to report the truth, especially where it concerns allegations of state complicity in murder and to ensure that sources who help to expose such tragedies receive our full protection. In a situation like Northern Ireland, where security and political issues are so closely intertwined, how can the media carry out their work if sources cannot be assured that both their identity and information won't be handed over to the authorities?
The British government should not seek to punish journalists for reporting and publishing information that it perceives not to be in its interests. A free society demands an independent watchdog, free of interference from government and dedicated to the open and unfettered flow of information. - Yours, etc.,
Pete Hamill, The New Yorker, New York, USA.
Also signed by: Jim Dwyer, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, New York Daily News; Nat Hentoff, columnist, The Village Voice; Sydney H. Schanberg, Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter; Peter Finn, Foreign Correspondent, The Washington Post; Juan Gonzalez, George Polk Award-winning columnist, New York Daily News; Paul Schwartzman, journalist, New York Daily News; Jimmy Breslin, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, Newsday; James Ridgeway, national correspondent, The Village Voice; Terry Golway, deputy editor, New York Observer; Alexander Cockburn, columnist, The Nation; Linda Perney, features editor, New York Daily News.