CNN: Novak’s status unchanged

Journalist Robert Novak’s status as a CNN contributor will remain unaffected during a federal probe into the revelation of a CIA officer’s identity, executives at the news channel say.

“I think we’re all aware that no one really knows what’s going on in the investigation of the Valerie Plame incident,” said Jonathan Klein, president of CNN/U.S. “So it would be awfully presumptuous of us to take steps against a guy in his career based on second-, third-, fourth-hand reporting.”

A special prosecutor is investigating the Bush administration’s leak of Plame’s name. In a July 2003 newspaper column, Novak identified Plame, the wife of administration critic and former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, as a CIA operative.