Former Time Inc. Editor Talks On Leak Case

By Michael Kelly

A former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and editor in chief of Time Inc spoke to Stony Brook University’s journalism students on Sept. 24 about his decision to turn over former Time reporter Matt Cooper’s notes in the Valerie Plame case.

Norm Pearlstine said it was odd he was involved with such a high-profile legal case, since after completing law school at Southern Methodist University he had spent most of his adult life “trying to run away from the law.”

The Valerie Plame case involved the disclosure of her status as a CIA officer leaked in a story by columnist Robert Novak. Richard Armitage, a white house official, gave the information to Novak. Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, claimed her name had been disclosed as retribution for his op-ed published in July 2003 in the New York Times, which said Iraq had not been pursuing uranium for nuclear weapons—challenging it as a justification for the Iraq war . A few days before the Novak piece, Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President Bush, had told Cooper of Plame’s identity as well, which he included in a story.

Pearlstine admitted that at first he didn’t realize that Cooper’s piece would turn into such a lightning rod of a story.

“I, frankly, didn’t even know about Cooper’s piece,” Pearlstine said.

As editor in chief of Time Inc., he was responsible for 154 magazines. This left barely enough time to read all of the weekly magazines, let alone the internet pieces, where Cooper’s article was. He said he first recognized that it could lead to something important when Cooper was subpoenaed.

Even with the subpoena, Pearlstine was not too worried about the situation. He said he believed it was the right of a journalist to keep his sources private when confidentiality had been promised.

“I couldn’t figure out why this was such a big deal,” Pearlstine said.

Pearlstine explained how over the following months he examined the case and began to think he had been wrong. He said he believed that Cooper had already compromised Rove’s identity by including his name in an e-mail to an editor and that the notes should be turned over to the grand jury..

Pearlstine said the entire case hinged on the difference between anonymity and confidentiality.

He said there is no clear definition of either, but his understanding was that anonymity meant that a source’s information can be used but not credited to them directly. Confidentiality meant that the information obtained can’t be used in a publication and that the name of the source cannot be circulated, even within the organization.

“If you give a source confidentiality, you have to be very careful with how you use the information,” Pearlstine said. “You don’t put the name in an e-mail.”

With Cooper’s exposure of Rove’s identity in the e-mail he sent to his editor, he had already broken his agreement of confidentiality, Pearlstine said.

In light of this, in June 2005, Pearlstine decided to turn over the notes to the grand jury.

Pearlstine admitted that his decision was unpopular in the world of journalism, saying the initial feeling at Time Inc. was one of “absolute betrayal.”

Since then, he said the people at Time Inc. have come to understand his decision, though many still don’t fully support it.

He has since left Time Inc., and recently joined the Carlyle Group as a senior advisor. The Carlyle Group, formed in 1987, is a private equity firm that “invests in buyouts, venture & growth capital, real estate and leveraged finance in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America,” according to its website.

When asked by a member of the audience if in light of this event reporters should avoid using anonymous sources, Pearlstine voiced the opposite view.

“A lot of our best journalism requires anonymous sources,” he said.

This echoed the sentiments of Bob Woodward, the assistant managing editor for the Washington Post and reporter of the Watergate scandal, who in his visit to Stony Brook this past spring said that he thought more anonymous sources should be used, not fewer.

However, Pearlstine cautioned that the motives of people have to be weighed before using their information, especially when they want to be used anonymously. He said that while a person might have very good information, he might have a very bad motive for revealing it.

“We don’t always get information from people who go to church,” he said.