So, I just finished watching a movie called Nothing But the Truth, which was actually based on, loosely mind you, this article. (Yes, it's wikipedia, get over it.) The principle conundrum that the movie presents is this: Which is more important, a government's need to provide national security (which it does in the form of The Patriot Act, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, and other court rulings), or a journalist's 1st Amendment rights to print freely anything she has reported? The journalist, who printed the identity of a CIA operative who forced her husband to write negative reviews about the president after the President ignored her report about Venezuelan assassination attempts on his life, is forced to go to jail after refusing to reveal the source of the CIA leak (the person who revealed the agent's identity. After facing contempt of court, a grand jury, two arrests and assault in jail, she still does not reveal her source). No one ever really says whether any of that's true or not, regarding the agent's nefarious journalism of the president. But the main question that I think should be asked is not one of rights conflicting (because, while I think that is an important argument, it's not the one I want to have. And since it's my blog, I can do whatever I want :p), but rather is this argument: In the movie, it is revealed that the source is the Agent's 6-ish year old daughter, who happened to be in the same class as the journalist's son. The daughter saw the reporter writing an article, and mentioned how her dad wrote articles after her mom yelled at him ( and bibbity, bobbity, boo, we have an exposé). The journalist fights throughout the film to NEVER reveal her source, who is 6 years old and had no idea what she was doing. Now, my argument is this:
ARGUMENT TIME:
IN CORNER 1:
Should you honor people's lives, and family cultures, by not reporting the truth (which is called lying by omission: you know something, but neglect to tell it), therefore becoming a "nice-ness" filter, only reporting the information which "is important, but won't hurt anybody"? (I should note that the CIA agent gets shot halfway through the film by a right-wing extremist who thinks that she was anti-american. Which no one would have known, had the journalist not written the report.)
MAIN ARGUMENT: Filtering the truth to respect people and honor them.
IN CORNER 2:
Should you recognize that, regardless of the consequences, when your job is to report the truth, you need to report it and let people live with the consequences of yours, and their, decisions? The reason there's emphasis there is because the mother needs to live with the consequences of her arguments with her husband identifying her occupation to her daughter, which led to this whole debacle.
MAIN ARGUMENT: The honorable thing is to report the truth, knowing whatever may come is your responsibility and those involved.
ESSENTIALS: This essentially is about which is "morally" the higher ground: respecting people or respecting the truth.
Now, my opinion is slightly flawed because of my christian beliefs: I believe first and foremost God said "Thou shalt not lie." So, lying by omission is still a violation of some pretty core beliefs. Unfortunately for the daughter and the mother, alot of bad stuff happened because of their choices, but once you find out about something, you can't change the names to protect the innocent. They're responsible too, simply because of the kind of world we live in. What do you think? There SHOULD be a comments section below, (if not, I'll go give the monkey some more bananas to ride the comment-powering bicycle) and give your two bits. I'm probably wrong, but I want to know why :) Also, if you've actually seen the movie, tell me what you thought of it :)
