Stamford Times – Senate Committee to be applauded for shield law

• By: ASNE staff
• On: 10/22/2007 16:48:53
• In: Shield law editorials

The Stamford (Ct.) Times
Oct. 22, 2007

We have been slow to accept the need for a shield law to protect reporters, but events have a way of making you see the light. There was a time when such laws were looked upon as an intrusion into journalism by the government.

There is a tendency in government too "keep things quiet," to keep things in-house; the fewer people who know about something the better. Too often efficiency is the cover for expediency, and who says the public has a right to know?

Confidential sources are what makes the exposure to the public malfeasance on the part of public officials. Often the source is placing himself or herself at personal risk in order to pass along information.

Reporters always would prefer it all on the record - it makes the story stronger, giving it credence.

The call for a federal shield law comes out of necessity. More and more, reporters who have exposed some wrongdoing are being threatened with fines and jail sentences.

Would the stories of Watergate or Iran-Contra ever have surfaced if some soul had not made that call, spoken to that reporter, encouraged by the promise of anonymity? More recently, would the deplorable conditions at the Walter Reed outpatient facility ever been uncovered without an anonymous source?

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 with 15 votes in favor and only two dissenting votes. That's heartening to those of us in the craft who see it as a useful safeguard in the search for truth. Again, there is no reporter who would not much prefer that information used be attributable to a named person. It doesn't always work that way.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there has been understandable concern about security. Many necessary measures have been taken, but, in some instances, the right of the public to know through the work of journalists has been impaired.

We have seen reporters for major publications threatened with and, in at least one case, go to jail for refusing to reveal a source promised anonymity. It's not just print journalists who are threatened. Jim Taricani, a reporter for a Rhode Island TV station, spent four months under house arrest for refusing to disclose his source in a story on governmental corruption.

Reporting out a bill in the Senate Committee is one thing: passage by the full Senate is quite another. We are ever hopeful that a federal shield bill will reach the desk of President Bush, but there is no guarantee that will come to pass. Would he sign it?

Nearly 60 news organizations from the largest to the smallest media outlets have given their support to this bill. As with the Right to Know law, the ultimate beneficiary is not the news reporter but the public.