The Yukon News has dropped its bid to force a local CBC radio reporter to reveal her confidential sources.

As recently as Friday, the Yukon News was pursuing an application, made last August, to have a judge order Nancy Thomson to name three of five people she interviewed in 2004 for a story about addiction in Watson Lake.

The series of radio pieces which sprung from those interviews detailed lives marred by violence, alcohol abuse, prescription drug addiction and death.

They prompted News editor Richard Mostyn to write an editorial naming the town's doctor and pharmacist, Dr. Said Secerbegovic, as part of the problem.

Secerbegovic sued the paper for defamation, and the paper in turn sued Thomson for her notes, including the names of her sources.

In particular, the News wanted the names of two people whose "lives had spiraled out of control” due in part to their prescription drug use.

The paper indicated it would use the defence of "honest comment”, meaning it would prove there was a prescription drug problem in the town of 1,600 people, but it needed Thomson's unnamed sources to do so.

Thomson gave the News transcripts of the interviews, but with the names of the subjects blacked out.

The people she spoke to trusted her to protect them from further isolation and victimization in their community, she said, and she would not betray them.

"I am very, very relieved,” she said today after hearing the News was dropping its suit against her.

People need to know they can trust journalists, she said, and revealing her sources would have broken that trust.

"I have a great respect for the judiciary, the Canadian judiciary is highly regarded internationally, and I wasn't relishing the prospect of disobeying the judiciary, but I would have fought if I'd had to,” Thomson said of how far she was prepared to go to protect those who spoke to her.

The names of two other people she interviewed are already known because one died soon after speaking to Thomson and the other has been charged with second-degree murder.

The man facing the murder charge, Michael Stewart, will likely be a key witness in the upcoming defamation trial, News lawyer David Sutherland said in court today. Yukon Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower was presiding.

And although the dead man cannot testify, the News will use details of his death to support its defence of honest comment.

The bodies of Gordon Stewart and Lyndon Johnny were found behind the Watson Lake liquor store on Oct. 9, 2004.

Johnny had died of acute alcohol poisoning, while Stewart had died of a prescription drug overdose, specifically the anti-psychotic drug olanzapine.

According to the coroner's report, Stewart had gone into Secerbegovic's clinic the day before claiming he had lost a week's worth of his drug regime, which included the anti-psychotic.

The "lost” container was found near Stewart's lifeless body, while the new prescription was never found.

At least one of the people interviewed by Thomson spoke of a black-market trade in prescription drugs.

Another interviewee claimed she took powerful Tylenol 3s for her hangovers and suffered from extensive liver damage.

Now, instead of the interviewees testifying, Thomson will describe what they told her, and it will be up to a jury to decide if they believe her account.

"I never expected to be in the middle of this storm,” Thomson said this morning, after the hearing was finished.

"... Who could have guessed one media outlet would be pursuing another in this way?”

If the matter of Thomson's sources had been argued in front of a judge, it would have marked the first time in Canadian history that one news organization took another to court to reveal anonymous sources

Usually, a journalist's right to protect her sources is one that media organizations band together to protect.

"People are very fearful of being ostracized and isolated,” Thomson said of why reporters need to protect vulnerable people who want to speak out. "Yet they need a voice. They can find that voice through journalism.

"...What would we be if we revealed our sources, simply abandoned them?”

The defamation trial between Secerbegovic and the News is scheduled to run from May 9 to 20.