Indeed. The journalist interviews, researches (using available materials, uses proper requests to obtain available materials), produces an article or story. A journalist who commits, or encourages or facilitates others to commit, crimes in the pursuit of their goals is still a criminal.
> A journalist who commits, or encourages or facilitates others to commit, crimes in the pursuit of their goals is still a criminal.
This is exactly what the prosecution tried to say, but it's not that easy. Did you read the testimony of investigative journalist Nicky Hager:
'[Prosecutor] Lewis: You have as a journalist merely been the passive recipient of official information. Presumably you have never done anything criminal to obtain government information?
'Hager: You said “passive”. That is not the way we work. Journalists not only actively work our sources. We go out and find our sources. The information might come in documents. It might come on a memory stick. In most cases our sources are breaking the law. Our duty is to help protect them from being caught. We actively help them cover their backs sometimes.'
Perhaps that's why whistleblowers are given so many special protections. If what they did was perfectly legal, a lot of the extra protections wouldn't be necessary.
If you're in the CIA, for example, you can't blow the whistle legally, at all. You'll always be breaking some law (security clearance, most often).
