BROOKE GLADSTONE: And now an update on the investigation of the Bush administration's most notorious leak - that of the name of CIA official Valerie Plame. Plame, you'll recall, is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who cast doubt on White House assertions about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war. His wife's CIA connection was leaked, apparently in retaliation by a White House official, but we don't know who. The investigators do know the names of the reporters who received the leak, and that's why Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time Magazine are headed to jail. They won't reveal the leaker, who investigators say committed a crime.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Legal appeals on first Amendment grounds have failed. This week, 36 news organizations, ranging from Hearst Newspapers to the Associated Press, filed a friend of the court brief with a whole new tack, suggesting that, in fact, no crime has been committed. Lawyer Bruce Sanford, who filed the brief, helped to write the statute on which the investigation is based, the Intelligence Protection Act of 1982. He's asserted that his statute was never intended to prosecute journalists in situations like this. Moreover, he contends, Plame's service at the time of the leak does not meet the standard for secrecy covered by the law. No crime, no case. Interesting strategy. Watch this space. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, Air America turns one, and will the real liberal Limbaugh please stand up.

BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media, from NPR. [FUNDING CREDITS]