Should Cindy Adams be protected under a Press shield law or policy?

Cindy Adams is the gossip columnist for the New York Post. From Radar on line. we learn that Ms. Adams somehow learned and then published that the D.C. Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, was planning to dump her current lawyer and replace him with one who would challenge the law against Prostitution that Ms. Palfrey is charged with violating.

This is information available only to Ms. Palfrey, her attorneys, and the Prosecution in her case and was under court seal. Ms. Palfrey alleges that the leak was a dirty trick by the Prosecution intended to use the "media outlets to disseminate or spin misleading information about Jeane."

If true, this is a severe violation of professional ethics by the Prosecution. The spokesperson for the Department of Justice denied that anyone in the Prosecution had done such a thing.

Cindy Adams has been subpoenaed to testify who her source was.

Publishing this leak does not seem to have any socially redeemable features. It seems to me that it could only act to make a fair trail for Ms. Palfrey more difficult to achieve. So my question is - should Cindy Adams in particular and the Press in general expect any legal right to withhold the name of Ms. Adam's source?

Most leaks from whistle-blowers are provided by people who have a personal act to grind. Such leaks have allowed the public to learn of some real crimes and injustices. But at the same time, the current administration has clearly provided leaks of otherwise classified information to be published by favored members of the press so that the position of the Bush administration could be put out while the arguments against the Bush administration's positions are hidden behind the veil of government secrecy. If someone in the Prosecutors office leaked this information to Cindy Adams, this is a case in which the Prosecution is violating a court seal in order to try Ms. Palfrey in the Press.

I used to support a Press Shield Law, but cases like this and like Judy Miller at the New York Times have caused me to have strong second thoughts. Without a Press Shield Law reporters like Cindy Adams will have to promise not to reveal a source and then take the legal heat on themselves when subpoenaed. That leaves the reporter and their publication with having to answer whether the benefit of publishing the leak is worth the legal heat.

There seems to be very little value in the publication of this leak in a gossip column.