Tomorrow morning inside Derry's historic Guildhall the often intersecting, sometimes conflicting, interests of truth and justice will collide.
Ahead of the Hutton Report's publication on Wednesday, at another longer running and more costly inquiry, one of the sacred principles of free and open journalism will be challenged: the protection of anonymous sources.
In one corner stands one of British television news' most respected figures, Channel 4's chief correspondent Alex Thomson, alongside his one-time producer, Lena Ferguson. In the other corner is a senior law lord, a battery of top British and Northern Irish barristers and the moral weight of 14 families seeking to establish what happened to their loved ones on 31 January 1972.
On that day the British Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 unarmed civilian marchers at an anti-internment march in Derry; another demonstrator died of his injuries later that year. The slaughter that became known as 'Bloody Sunday' was shown on television around the world and put Britain in the international dock. The massacre of civilians became the subject of two television movies and numerous books and newspaper accounts.
Bloody Sunday also led, after three decades of agitation by the victims' families and their supporters, to a marathon public inquiry that it is estimated will cost more than £200 million in legal fees and has seen former Prime Ministers, IRA chiefs-of-staff, British soldiers, police informers, journalists, broadcasters and the relatives give evidence.
The irony, however, of tomorrow's stage in the often gruelling tour of events in Derry 32 years ago is that the two journalists facing possible imprisonment due to their insistence that their sources must be protected were the ones whose endeavours helped bring about the inquiry in the first place.
Ferguson and Thomson produced a series of reports for ITN's Channel 4 News in 1997-98 that revealed serious flaws in the official account of Bloody Sunday. John Bruton, then Irish Prime Minister, has acknowledged that Thomson and Ferguson's investigations played a major part in helping Dublin persuade Tony Blair's newly elected government to hold a new inquiry. Bertie Ahern, Bruton's successor, personally thanked Channel 4 News and the two journalists for uncovering errors in Lord Widgery's 1972 report, which suggested that soldiers opened fire because they believed they were under fire and that some of those killed were carrying nail bombs when shot.
Thomson and Ferguson have been recalled to give evidence to the inquiry for a second time. They previously gave evidence in May 2002, when they refused to reveal the identity of confidential sources. They were later informed that the inquiry was preparing to certify them in contempt. ITN has conducted a robust defence of the Channel 4 pair, arguing that inquiry chairman Lord Saville and his team are in danger of undermining the key principle of a free media: source protection.
'ITN and the two journalists have continued to assist the Bloody Sunday Inquiry wherever they can,' a spokeswoman for the news corporation said this weekend.
'The confidential sources were five soldiers present at Bloody Sunday. Prior to giving the interviews, the soldiers had said they would not speak if their identities were disclosed because they had concerns for their personal safety...
'The journalists accepted this and agreed not to reveal the names of the soldiers and to protect them as the sources. It was on this basis that the interviews were given ...'
At their previous appearance the pair were questioned in detail about their series of reports. They were specifically asked by Saville to disclose the names of the five anonymous soldiers.
Both refused, but agreed to approach the sources to ask them to lift the duty of confidentiality. Three of the soldiers agreed to give their own evidence to the inquiry, but two remain anonymous.
The ITN spokeswoman added: 'The contempt issue also extends to ITN, which has refused to hand over taped material that might help identify the sources. Despite repeated requests from ITN and the two journalists, the inquiry has not said whether it intends to proceed with a court action for contempt. This would be a criminal trial and could carry a prison sentence if the defendants are found guilty.'
Both Ferguson and Thomson are understood to be determined that, if needs be, they will go to jail rather than betray their sources.
Back in May 2002, Ferguson told the inquiry that she had 'made an agreement to those soldiers that I would not reveal their identities and I do not want to be persuaded to change that agreement I had with them'.
Thomson added that the principle he was defending extended not just to Channel 4 News but 'investigative journalism and its future as a whole'.
The Saville inquiry has created problems for other journalists probing into aspects of Bloody Sunday. Toby Harnden, the Jerusalem correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, has been engaged for several years in a battle with Saville. While Ireland correspondent for the paper in the late 1990s, Harnden interviewed several former paratroopers who were in Derry on 31 January 1972. The inquiry summoned the reporter to Derry and ordered him to hand over his notes of those interviews. Harden refused and was found guilty of contempt. It is uncertain whether Saville will continue to pursue Harden.
I too have found myself in difficulties with the tribunal after I interviewed several IRA informers about Bloody Sunday. They included Willie Carlin, who spied for a decade on Martin McGuinness and rubbished claims by an MI5 agent that the Sinn Fein MP fired the first shots on Bloody Sunday. Saville demanded the notes from Carlin's interview and the other unnamed informants. This was refused and legal action was threatened. So far there has been no further communication.
Northern Ireland's inquiry culture - its selective examination of past crimes - has thrown up a worrying paradox for reporters, editors and producers. The British Government is sitting on a report by Canadian judge Peter Cory that will recommend public inquiries into four controversial killings in Northern Ireland and one in the Irish Republic. All involve rogue police officers and soldiers who allegedly colluded with loyalist and republican terrorists in murders. Much of the impetus for these inquiries started in the 'first draft of history' news reports and investigations. The fear in the Northern Irish press corps and media pack is that their sources in these cases will also come under scrutiny.
Perhaps the supreme irony of the longest-running inquiry in British history is that some of those who have already given evidence to the tribunal and refused to disclose the identities of key witnesses and players have not faced any legal censure. McGuinness, the Provisional IRA Derry Brigade second-in-command in 1972, refused last year to offer up the names of other IRA comrades who could come forward with eyewitness accounts of that fateful day. He was upbraided but not threatened with any legal action. It seems the IRA's code of silence is safe while there is open season on a key tenet of press and broadcasting freedom.
