If there is any journalistic canon that is still honored by virtually all in the business, it is the concealment of the identity of confidential sources. Most first world journalists will go to jail before they violate it.
With the feds getting copies of the AP's phone records, they have infuriated a group of reporters and opinion shapers who were quite pro-Obama and had been so for the last 6 years. Check out the opening two sentences in this New Yorker article:
If the three-strikes rule were in effect, President Obama would be heading for the dugout, bat in hand. First the alleged Benghazi cover-up, then the kerfuffle about the I.R.S. targeting conservative groups, and now the revelation that earlier this year the Justice Department secretly seized two months of phone records involving editors and reporters at the Associated Press.And the New Yorker likes President Obama, supports him. Imagine what columnists in the (admittedly marginalized) conservative press will say.
Attorney General Eric Holder has been a continuing embarrassment for President Obama. This is likely to be Holder's final screw-up. Don't be surprised if the President is 'saddened' to accept his resignation for personal reasons some day soon.
This event suggests that reporters will start using so-called "burner phones" for anything investigative, if they don't do so already. AP may buy them by the case.
