Reporters, crime, and sources.

Editor,
If the crime is revealing state secrets to reporters, only those reporters can verify what they were told. They are instrumentalities of the crime.

If a reporter is told information about a criminal transaction relative to which he or she is not a party, investigators have other means to learn what occurred.

What is and what is not a state secret is a slippery slope. One can only hope that in a democracy information necessary to the political process is not classified as secret by the government.