Judith Miller gives evidence

The Independent under the headline

Nods, winks and a lesson for the media worldwide

Comments on the current court case in Washington where Judith Miller former reporter of the New York Times is giving evidence against Lewis Libby former advisor to Dick Cheney.
Miller,you may recall,was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to identify the said Libby as the source of confidential information regarding Saddam Hussein which wsa used by the vice President for justification of the Iraq war.

According to the article

The Libby affair is hugely important nonetheless. It has turned a rare and merciless spotlight on the system of nods, winks and leaks that operates between senior officials and the media that cover them.

Reporters like Ms Miller are vouchsafed nuggets of information on the understanding they will not reveal where they came from.

The case show that reporters have no imunity certainly in America over the protection of their sources and as the paper points out

the erroneous stories she had written earlier about WMD underline a lesson for journalists everywhere. If unnameable sources dangle a scoop in front of you, make sure it's true.