It's a shame that Time magazine chose expediency over principal in deciding to hand over a reporter's notes to a special prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA agent Valeie Plame. It's also a sign of what is wrong with journalism today.

Time, owned by media conglomerate Time-Warner, has interests in broadcasting and is currently seeking federal permission to acquire Adelphia Cable.

The decision to cave in to the special prosecutor's demands truly smacks of "sucking up," depsite magazine officials' claims that "nobody is above the law."

While that is correct, there's a long tradition in this nation of breaking laws when principal is at stake. The principal here is being able to guarantee a source's anonymity, something that is increasingly important as government officials increasingly try to conduct the public business in secret and are capable of retribution

— like outing a CIA agent whose husband crossed the Bush administraiton.

As a result of its actions, Time reporters are likely to lose the confidence of many of its sources, and rightly so. It might be a good time to turn to Newsweek.