A judge has sent a New York Times reporter to jail after she said she could not reveal her confidential source to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's name to the media.
Chief US District Judge Thomas Hogan ordered Judith Miller to jail immediately and said she must stay there until she agrees to testify or until the end of the grand jury's term in October.
Another case involving Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper was resolved when he told the judge he had just received the 'expressed personal consent' of his source to reveal his identity. 'Consequently I am prepared to testify,' he said.
Miller told the judge she did not want to go to jail but had no choice but to protect her sources.
They had both been asked for their sources as part of an investigation into the leaking of the name of a CIA agent two years ago.
The agent, Valerie Plame, was named in a newspaper column by conservative commentator Bob Novak.
Ms Plame's husband had written critically of claims by the Bush Administration that Iraq had tried to procure uranium from the West Africa country of Niger.
Mr Cooper wrote about the leak, while Ms Miller researched but did not publish anything. Mr Novak does not face prosecution.
Last October, the journalists were charged with contempt of court for refusing to reveal their sources to the investigation.
Their appeal process effectively ended last week when the US Supreme Court refused to hear their cases.
The prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, had called on the presiding judge to jail both journalists and to refuse their requests for home detention.
