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Daily News Journal — Journalists need shield against feds

The Daily News Journal, Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Feb. 23, 2008

Congress should pass a federal shield law that will keep the Department of Justice from prying into newsrooms and journalists' notebooks.

Case in point: America is all atwitter about allegations that baseba

The Daily News Journal, Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Feb. 23, 2008

Congress should pass a federal shield law that will keep the Department of Justice from prying into newsrooms and journalists' notebooks.

Case in point: America is all atwitter about allegations that baseball pitching great Roger Clemens used human growth hormone and steroids.

A congressional committee even brought in Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee to testify about the use of illegal steroids in major league baseball.

The inquiry, which elicited one denial after another from Clemens, makes for great American theater and eventually could clean up our national pastime. But national security it is not.

As written, the Free Flow of Information Act would protect reporters from being compelled to disclose the names of sources, unless the issue involved national security or an imminent terrorist act.

So far, we've been unable to connect steroid use in big league baseball to terrorism.

Yet two years ago, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada were subpoenaed to testify about their use of leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO steroid investigation in writing the book, "Game of Shadows," about slugger Barry Bonds, who last season broke the all-time home run record.

The subpoena of Williams and Fainaru-Wada is just one of many attempts by the federal government in the past few years to make reporters reveal their sources.

Too often, the Department of Justice is using the media as an investigative arm, trying to force reporters to turn over notes or give testimony that will blow their sources' anonymity.

The House of Representatives passed the shield law 398-21, and the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Free Flow of Information Act. It needs only to pass the full Senate with an overwhelming vote that overrides a presidential veto. We urge Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker to encourage their peers to give it a thumbs up.

Americans do not benefit when government oversteps its bounds and pries into the affairs of the Fourth Estate. In fact, if government could force reporters to give up their sources every time they didn't like a news report, we likely would have never found out about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, poor conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center or the cover-up of Watergate.

Abu Ghraib and Walter Reed directly affect U.S. efforts in the war as well as our nation's treatment of veterans, while Watergate was a turning point of sorts for journalism and coverage of the White House.

Tennessee is one of 33 states that already have shield laws that protect journalists. Congress should follow the example set across the country and pass the Free Flow of Information Act. Otherwise, the feds could keep dragging reporters into court to get at their sources, and that puts a chilling effect on the people's right to know.

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