Pulitzer saw journalists as having a passport that enables them to roam. To get to people wherever they are or in whatever condition they find themselves and to ask questions that are direct and to the point. Alongside that goes the function of acting as a check on the power of the State or other institutions by providing independent information on the activities of the powerful. So far, so familiar. But inherent in Pulitzer’s vision is the relationship between the journalist and the society in which he or she works. We have read and seen much of citizen journalists in recent months, but in the professional domain, at what point do the roles of citizen and journalist diverge?

The gathering storms in Washington over the CIA-leak investigation have become a test of journalistic as well as political ethics. High-profile reporters are now being drawn in to testify against their source, raising some unprecedented issues. The New York Times has reported that if the Lewis Libby case comes to trial — Vice-President Cheney’s chief of staff and Karl Rove, senior Presidential adviser, face possible indictments — the prosecution is likely to use testimony by Tim Russert of NBC News, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and Judith Miller of The New York Times to show that Libby lied to investigators. As the NY Times (and indeed William Rees Mogg in the London Times) have argued, such an unusual strategy puts the media in the position it fears most: becoming a de-facto investigative arm of the government. Such a strategy could also be risky — pitting the credibility of a government official against members of a profession whose ethics have also been under assault. This is a worrying development for journalists everywhere and again raises difficult questions about how and whether we should protect our sources, come what may.

The prosecution in America seems to revolve around whether Libby told the truth to the special investigator, rather than the actual leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name. Critics of the indictment claim that bringing charges on the basis of manufacturing political spin is a step too far. But there is a central issue of truth. Most political scandals in Britain have been as much about the cover-up as the original misdeed. In the end, perjury is not merely a technical offence, as has been suggested by one or two U.S. Senators.

Challenge for journalism

It is equally difficult when it comes to reporting groups or individuals who are taking their political or religious beliefs to the edge of legality and beyond. In one sense, we have been through all this in Northern Ireland. Careful judgments had to be made about when or whether to interview the IRA or other para-military groups. Even before Mrs Thatcher spoke of the “oxygen of publicity”, news organisations had to think hard about talking to people their audiences found repugnant, weighing the public interest in knowing a little more of “the enemy” and what they wanted with the opprobrium of providing them with a “platform”.

But if journalism is going to serve the public interest in understanding what is happening in the world and why, occasionally we will want to talk to people who might seek to explain or even explain away acts of terror. That does not mean we support the holders of those views. We simply report them. It is a key part of the media’s role in a free society to ensure that freedom of information means just that; that people are given the information they need to make sense of events for themselves and to evaluate the best response.

On August 1, 2005, as part of its ongoing reporting into the London bombings and what lay behind them, Newsnight interviewed Abu Uzair and Abu Izzadeen of the radical Islamist sect Al Ghurabaa. In the interview, they both sought to justify the July 7 attacks. Abu Izzadeen said: “What I would say about those who do suicide operations, or martyrdom operations, they are completely praiseworthy.” Asked if he would go to the police if he knew another attack was being planned Abu Uzair said: “I would never go to the police… because I believe that to spy on Muslims is particularly not allowed at all”. Both statements express attitudes we might find disturbing, but they do not appear to breach the current Terrorism Act. They do not reveal any evidence of plots or caches or cells. But they do give an insight into the minds of British Islamists. We would argue that it is a matter of legitimate public interest.

What happened after Newsnight was broadcast is instructive. The police went straight to a judge to get an order under the Terrorism Act, requiring the BBC to hand over not only the transmitted programme but the rushes, notes and “any other relevant material”. We were given no warning and no opportunity to put a contrary case, or to argue that there was no breach of the existing law. Indeed, given the Government’s proposals to extend the law to cover words that “glorify” terrorism, it would appear that it shares our view. Faced with a court order that had been sought behind our backs, we decided it would be wrong simply to hand over the material without any argument or attempt to limit the seizure to what was in the public domain. We await further developments.

Clearly the BBC does not support terrorism, but there is a fundamental principle at stake. We have to be free to gather news and views to serve the society of which we, too, are a part. If we are to continue to enjoy the confidence of the community Pulitzer wrote about, we cannot afford to be thought of as an extension of the police service or the intelligence agencies. We need people to talk to us. The public needs to have access to that information. The public interest is better served by our being able to report what is happening and get inside the minds of people. That becomes impossible if every step is dogged with the threat of police raids and seizures of journalistic material. Yes, we have responsibilities as citizens, but our responsibility is also to inform our fellow citizens on the nature of the arguments and threats of which they need to be aware.