“More than two dozen news organizations” have asked Virginia’s U.S. district court in “friend-of-the-court brief” to allow New York Times reporter James Risen to keep the sources for his 2006 book State of War anonymous, the New York Times reported.
U.S. prosecutors want him to testify at a former CIA officer’s trial because they think the officer, Jeffrey Sterling, leaked information to Risen, as the New York Times reported last year.
The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the Washington Post are among the signatories to the brief, according to the New York Times.
We wrote in October when POLITICO reported that Risen wouldn’t have to out his sources but would have to give the court information to prove “the accuracy of his reporting.”