Editor and Author
Norman Pearlstine
Notes from Evan Smith
"Ask Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to the vice president of the United States, who’s about to spend thirty months in jail, what he thinks of the use of confidential sources in journalism. Or ask Valerie Plame, the CIA agent he was accused of outing to various reporters, presumably for reasons motivated by petty politics. Better yet, ask one of the journalists caught in the crossfire—Judith Miller, formerly of the New York Times, or Matt Cooper, formerly of Time magazine, who were ordered as part of a special counsel’s investigation into the Plame matter to say who it was, exactly, that told them about her covert status. Or best of all, ask one of the top editors who ultimately had to make the tough call about how much to reveal and when and why. This week our guest is just such an editor—one who bucked the journalistic tradition of protecting sources at all costs and defends that position with great energy and persuasiveness in his new book Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War Over Anonymous Sources. Norman Pearlstine was, indeed, the editor in chief of Time Inc., the parent company of Time magazine, when the moment arrived to turn over Cooper’s notes or risk his being hauled off to jail. The 65-year-old, who’d spent a quarter-century at the Wall Street Journal, most recently in its top editorial position, before taking control of the content Time Inc.’s 154 publications in 1995, drew on his legal training in making what is now one of the most famous, or infamous, decisions in the modern history of our profession. Educated at the elite Hill School, Haverford College, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he is, as his book demonstrates, extraordinarily smart, thoughtful, and provocative in his points of view about what’s right, and wrong, with his American journalism." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 06.28.07
