Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

On Dec. 15, 20 faculty members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism wrote President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, to warn that criminal prosecution of Wikileaks or its founder, Julian Assange, "will set a dangerous precedent for reporters in any publication or medium." One of the signatories, Todd Gitlin, chair of the Journalism School's doctoral program, addressed the subject on the Dec. 17 edition of National Public Radio's "On the Media."

"You don't prosecute for making material public even if, in my own judgment, that material should not be. But I'm not the czar of information. I don't think I should be. I don't think that Eric Holder should be. There is more reason to worry about the chilling effect than there is to worry about the consequences of any particular leak," Gitlin said. "There are parts of the media that I think are scurrilous and I would not think responsible, but the way freedom of the press works you have to defend the whole caboodle. The First Amendment is not just about freedom of journalists. The word 'journalist' is not mentioned in the Constitution."

Interviewer Brooke Gladstone outlined the legal methods being explored by the Obama administration, ranging from the 1917 Espionage Act and the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Acts to a proposed new law, the SHIELD Act, designed specifically to prosecute Wikileaks.

Gitlin emphasized that any of these legal approaches should be evaluated not simply as a judgment for or against Wikileaks or Julian Assange, but as establishing a precedent for what can be brought to bear not only against news publishers, but against all free expression protected by the First Amendment: "There is more reason to worry about the chilling effect than there is to worry about the consequences of any particular leak."

Listen to the complete audio of the segment below or read the transcript here.