Blog
Courier-Post — Adopt federal shield law
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 10/16/2007 13:31:23
- In: Shield law editorials
Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, N.J.
Oct. 14, 2007
Protections for confidential sources, which 49 states have, should be approved by Congress.
Tuesday, the House of Representatives plans to consider a bill that has lingered for far too long -- a federal shield law simi
Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, N.J.
Oct. 14, 2007
Protections for confidential sources, which 49 states have, should be approved by Congress.
Tuesday, the House of Representatives plans to consider a bill that has lingered for far too long -- a federal shield law similar to those on the books in 49 states that gives reporters the ability to protect the identity of their sources.
We're not just touting this bill because it's something designed to help this newspaper. Compelling journalists, be they newspaper reporters, bloggers or whoever else, to surrender the identity of sources they've promised to not reveal seriously undercuts reporters' ability to bring important information to public light. Just in the last few years, confidential sources helped media outlets break stories on the woeful treatment of wounded veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Major League Baseball steroids scandal.
When government agencies, the military, corporations and other institutions engage in sinister or illegal actions, it often takes a courageous whistle-blower inside these organizations to contact a reporter and let them know what's going on. Through on-the-record sources and documents, reporters can flush out the story given to them by a confidential source and, hopefully, correct an injustice. But so many of these things cannot happen if reporters can't protect their sources from retribution. Dozens of reporters in the last few years have been hauled into federal court and commanded to hand over the names of their confidential sources.
We urge South Jersey's House delegation -- Democrat Rob Andrews and Republicans Frank LoBiondo and Jim Saxton -- to vote for bill HR 2102. The bill has strong bipartisan support and is something that, frankly, should have been put in place decades ago.