Fighting for the Press

Author James Goodale was chief counsel for the New York Times during the Nixon era. His new book, “Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles,” outlines our government’s pernicious (and ongoing) threat to media freedom. Some prescient authors get all the luck: Every morning it seems we’re greeted to fresh revelations of Barack Obama’s War on Leaks over-reaching into the privacy of journalists. His administration has threatened to pursue Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, just as Nixon went after Neil Sheehan and the Times. In “Fighting,” Goodale warns that the act of newsgathering as we know it may become criminalized. The question is: does anyone except First Amendment lawyers care? Read this book and you will.