Satellite Synergy

"Naive" seems fair game, "dotty" sure doesn't.

I'm glad the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who broke the Barry Bonds story aren't going to jail. But the LAT's Tim Rutten says they're no heroes:

"Two San Francisco Chronicle reporters -- Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams -- have made themselves poster children for advocates of a federal shield law by risking jail to protect the source who leaked them federal grand jury testimony by three professional baseball stars, including Barry Bonds.

"Thursday, we learned just who they were protecting when Troy L. Ellerman, a defense lawyer for one of BALCO's vice presidents, pleaded guilty to contempt of court, obstruction of justice and filing a false declaration with a federal court. Ellerman leaked the testimony to the Chronicle reporters, then went out and argued that the ensuing publicity would deny his client a fair trial. Worse, he actually filed motions with the court alleging that prosecutors had leaked the testimony and that charges against the BALCO official should be dismissed.

"The two reporters maintained their silence while all this occurred. Worse, Fainaru-Wada returned to the defense attorney's office to obtain still more leaked testimony after their source had lied in public and to the court."

Finally, the networks in breathless pursuit of the hiccup girl:

"The notes under the door. The incessant phone calls. The impassioned pleas, all begging for a piece of the story.

"It wasn't reporters in search of secret intelligence involving the war in Iraq.

"The subject: St. Petersburg's Jennifer Mee, a 15-year-old who started hiccuping four weeks ago today and has yet to stop.

"The competition for her story became so frenzied over the weekend that NBC's Today show changed Jennifer and her mother's New York hotel after another network's exhaustive attempts to get an interview . . . Representatives from ABC's Good Morning America called Jennifer's home 57 times on Sunday and slipped notes under her hotel room door, her family said."

What a relief that some news organizations are now focusing on the problems of ordinary people.