The plight that Josh Wolf finds himself in is a sobering reminder that journalism can potentially be dangerous to ones freedom.

For those of you not familiar with Josh Wolf, he is a 24 year old independent journalist who currently finds himself behind bars for contempt of court. His ‘contempt’ was due to his refusal to reveal a source. While this is by no means a unique situation, and over the years a number of journalists have faced a night or two at the courts pleasure, Josh Wolf is in a different league having spent 169 days in jail.

This gives Josh Wolf the record for most time spent in jail for withholding the name of a source.

Josh incidentally was named journalist of the year in 2006 by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Much is made of China imprisoning bloggers, yet we have a very similar situation here in the US.

The press release can be found here.

Simon Barrett

http://zzsimonb.blogspot.com

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