By: Barbara Grzincic

It is bettter to leak one memo than to curse the dark lagoon. 

So says 4th Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, “a former ink-stained wretch who went on to become a judge [but] still has a soft spot for old-school newspapers,” writes Deborah Elkins, our sister blogger at Virginia Lawyers Weekly.

As we noted last week, the Richmond-based court revived a retaliation lawsuit by a police officer who had leaked an internal memo to The (Baltimore) Sun. Wilkinson concurred but wrote separately in praise of that cherished entity: The Source.

“To throw out this citizen who took his concerns to the press on a motion to dismiss would have profound adverse effects on accountability in government … at a particularly parlous time,” Wilkinson wrote.

As traditional newsgathering organizations “have been shuttered or shrunk,” the judge wrote, coverage of state and local government “has too often been reduced to low-hanging fruit” and “increasingly shortchanged.”

As a result, “it may be more important than ever that [inside] sources carry the story to the reporter, because there are, sad to say, fewer shoe leather journalists to ferret the story out… It is vital to the health of our polity that the functioning of the ever more complex and powerful machinery of government not become democracy’s dark lagoon.”

So, have you leaked any internal memos today?