Globe and Mail reporter Daniel Leblanc who helped to expose the federal sponsorship scandal is being told by the courts to reveal the source that helped him initiate his investigation of the story.  Naturally he’s telling the court to shove it and I find that to be entirely desirable.

There’s something quite horribly wrong when a court begins to demand the identity of an informant who has provided factual information to the press in the interests of the public good.  Even if it’s a minor public good, I don’t think reporters should even have to face this possibility of having to breach the trust of those who provide them with information.  A line in the CBC article kind of has be some what perturbed.

David Paccioco, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said Leblanc’s best defence is to “persuade the court that the nature of the story that was broken had such tremendous public interest and the ability to break that story depended on a promise of confidentiality.”

Bullocks!  It shouldn’t matter if the informant was exposing the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars or that some one got a cushy job because their friend knows Jeff in a government accounting office.  Anyone should be able to know that they can approach a reporter with information that may be of interest to the public and provide that information without having to worry about being exposed as a whistle blower.  So long as the information is factual, that’s ok in my books.  If this trust is ever undermined by government, our press becomes less valuable.

I doubt I will ever be in the position to have some one entrust me with information of exceptional public interest but if I were, I certainly would never reveal that person’s identity if that was the desire and if the information were true.  Compelling anyone to unmask such people is a disservice to the public interest.