01:00 AM EST on Sunday, November 14, 2004

Chilly winds usually come our way from Canada.

But there's a cold blast of a different kind emanating from the Federal courtroom of Judge Ernest C. Torres, who is determined to find the source of an undercover Plunder Dome videotape that Channel 10's Jim Taricani put on the air in 2001.

Taricani refuses to name his source. So he faces a criminal contempt trial Thursday that could put him in jail for up to six months. Torres has said he will send Taricani to jail if he's found guilty.

Torres clearly does not want to send Taricani, who had a heart transplant in 1996, to prison. Just as obviously, Taricani doesn't want to go.

But Torres is committed to finding out who violated a court order by leaking the tape. Taricani won't give up a confidential source. So it seems both men are in a corner with no way out.

WHETHER TARICANI goes to jail or not, though, it's clear that reporters, news organizations and sources will feel a chill from this case.

Sources who might come forward with information now see the kind of pressure that can be applied to a reporter to give them up. And reporters have to ask themselves whether a story is really worth doing jail time.

As for news organizations, they are no doubt aware of the legal fees and fines that Channel 10 -- which is owned by NBC -- has already paid out in the Taricani case.

With a bottom line to consider, they're going to think very, very hard before airing something like Taricani's Plunder Dome video the next time.

"IT ABSOLUTELY HAS a chilling effect," said Channel 12's Jack White, who won a Pulitzer Prize in the '70s while working for The Journal.

When Channel 10 aired the Plunder Dome video, White said, he wished he had gotten it himself.

"My inclination then and now would be to want to use it," White said, adding that he thinks Channel 12 would have aired it at the time.

"Now I don't know if the decision would be the same."

Channel 12 news director Gary Brown said he can't say if his station would broadcast a video acquired under similar circumstances now.

"I couldn't give you an absolute," he said. "There would have to be a lot of discussion . . . . There would be lots and lots of talk with the attorneys."

If nothing else, Brown said, the Taricani case has made the limits of First Amendment protection for reporters very clear.

Taricani's legal appeals have run up against a 1972 Supreme Court decision that denies reporters a First Amendment right to refuse to answer questions put to them in the course of a grand jury investigation or criminal trial.

Edwin Hart, news director at Channel 6, said the Taricani case undoubtedly creates some apprehension among reporters and sources who may come forward.

"It does impact us all, there's no question about that," Hart said. "It does make you take a deep breath."

CHANNEL 6 REPORTER Jim Hummel said local broadcast reporters have been following the Taricani case closely, partly out of personal concern for Taricani, partly because it affects their work.

"This is the sort of thing that makes us all think twice," Hummel said. "But this is a unique set of circumstances, because there was a court order involved."

Hummel points out that reporters use confidential sources fairly rarely.

Even so, sometimes they are necessary to obtain important information, and once confidentiality has been promised, you can't disclose a source.

"These are the tools I need to do my job," Hummel said.

Hummel said sources can be easily spooked.

In 1990, when Hummel worked for The Journal, he had to testify at the gambling trial of Harold Miller, a state senator and former lieutenant in the Rhode Island State Police. Hummel said confidential sources he had within the State Police were extremely nervous at the very idea he was on a witness stand.

White said one thing the Taricani case will not change is his own commitment to sources.

"I always try to get people to go on the record first," he said. "But if they don't, I'll go to prison before I give them up."

IN TRYING TO persuade Taricani to reveal his source, Torres asked him to consider whether the source was worth doing jail time.

"What kind of person would sit back and remain silent while you face the prospect of being found guilty of criminal contempt?" he said.

But Torres had it backward.

It doesn't matter what kind of person the source is. It matters what kind of person Taricani is.

So far, he's the kind of person who keeps his word.

Television writer Andy Smith and other Journal arts writers share the At Large column. Reach him by e-mail at asmith [at] projo.com.