Kalamazoo Gazette — Senate must pass federal shield law

• By: ASNE staff
• On: 05/07/2008 11:47:32
• In: Shield law editorials

Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette
March 26, 2008

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton issued a contempt-of-court citation against a former USA Today reporter who refused to reveal her confidential sources in anthrax stories that she investigated.

Walton has ordered Toni Locy to pay up to $45,000 in fines and -- in an incredible departure from previous cases in which news reporters have been cited with contempt over confidential sources -- has ruled that no one may help her pay the fine, which ratchets up another $5,000 a day for each day she does not pay it.

It means that her former employer, Gannett Co., which certainly benefits from having journalists who understand the importance of maintaining promises of confidentiality, cannot help her pay the fine. Her friends and colleagues can't assist her.

Fortunately, the U.S. Court of Appeals has stayed the penalty on appeal.

If Locy's case were being heard in a state court -- including the state of Michigan -- and the District of Columbia, which have shield laws that protect journalists, she might not be facing this penalty.

But because this is a federal case, she, and other reporters who have tried to honor her commitment to confidential sources in federal court, have no such protection.

That's why we once again urge Congress to pass a federal shield law to ensure that journalists continue to be free to pursue important stories without fear of potential repercussions.

A federal shield bill has overwhelmingly passed the U.S. House, 398 to 21. U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, was one of the 71 co-sponsors.

But now the U.S. Senate needs to act. The bill was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, by a 15-4 vote, in October. It has been languishing in the Senate ever since.

The Newspaper Association of America, in a memo to senators, reminded them: ``Groundbreaking stories, such as conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center, the Enron scandal and steroid abuse in Major League Baseball, would not have been known to the public -- or to the Congress -- without confidential sources.'

Reporters were threatened with jail -- and one, Judith Miller of The New York Times did spend time in jail -- for refusing to identify who in the White House had revealed the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Shield laws are not without their problems. In the United States, where there is no agency or organization that licenses journalists, anyone can claim to be a reporter.

But this troubling trend in the federal courts can do nothing but send a chill throughout the government and American journalism.

It's time for the U.S. Senate to put a stop to it.