I know that the high priests of journalism have decreed that there is a sacred code, and that all agreements between source and reporter are of greater importance than, say, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, but there are many times in our lives when the right thing to do isn't strictly the "legal" thing or the "by the ETHICS code" thing. You know, civil disobedience.
I'd say when Booby Woodward, age 77, rich guy, is sitting in front of his TV for months watching Trump lie repeatedly and continuously about something he knew as the body count meter goes around and around, that the moral thing to do is to say "screw whatever agreement I had with my source! I'm going to violate TEH ETHICS and go to print now!"
Protecting whistleblowers, both individually and so as not to discourage future ones, is important. Protecting your ability to personally get future scoops from The President Of The United States of Plague Ridden America... not so much.
