Frontline

News War (2): Secrets, Sources & Spin (2007x3)

Air date: Feb 20, 2007

In News War, FRONTLINE examines the political, cultural, legal, and economic forces challenging the news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Through interviews with key figures in print, broadcast and electronic media over the past four decades -- and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to the new challenges presented by the war on terror and other global forces now changing -- and challenging -- the role of the press in our society. Part two continues with the legal jeopardy faced by a number of reporters across the country, and the additional complications generated by the war on terror. Correspondent Lowell Bergman interviews reporters facing jail for refusing to reveal their sources in the context of leak investigations and asks questions on tough issues that now confront the editors of the nation's leading newspapers, including: how much can the press reveal about secret government programs in the war on terror without jeopardizing national security? FRONTLINE looks past the heated, partisan rhetoric to determine how much of this battle is politics and whether such reporting actually harms national security.