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Keene Sentinel — Reporter shield
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 07/08/2008 15:13:15
- In: Shield law editorials
The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel
July 06, 2008
There was a time when this newspaper and many others rejected the idea of a shield law a law designed to protect reporters who promise confidentiality in return for information. We figured the First Amendment should be protection e
The Keene (N.H.) Sentinel
July 06, 2008
There was a time when this newspaper and many others rejected the idea of a shield law a law designed to protect reporters who promise confidentiality in return for information. We figured the First Amendment should be protection enough.
That was before reporters started going to jail.
Forty-nine states including New Hampshire offer limited protections for reporters caught in the bind between breaking their word and defying a court order. But increasingly, subpoenas have been sent out by federal courts, which have no confidentiality guidelines to follow.
For the past several years, Congress has contemplated, but only the House has passed, the Free Flow of Information Act, a bipartisan measure that would offer a limited shield for journalists in protecting their sources as well as the public’s right to know. Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama support the bill, which has yet to come up for a vote in the Senate, perhaps because administration officials have indicated that President Bush would veto it.
Now the attorneys general of the states with shield laws including New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte have written Senate leaders urging them to get moving on the bill.
“Reporter shield laws, which have been adopted through either legislation or judicial decision in every state but one, must now be viewed as a policy experiment that has been thoroughly validated through successful implementation at the state level,” the letter says. It goes on to mention “inconsistency and uncertainty for reporters and the confidential sources upon whom they rely.”
As things stand, with protections for journalists either nonexistent or varying from state to state, some reporters are ending up in jail. Of even greater concern, others are refusing to accept or base reporting on otherwise unobtainable information that’s offered on a not-for-attribution basis. They thus avoid trouble for themselves, but they keep the public in the dark. In fact, in these situations the public remains in the dark even about the fact that it remains in the dark. And that situation is obviously dangerous in a self-governing society.
There’s little likelihood that a presidential veto could stop the shield bill. The measure passed the House 398-21 last fall. It came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a vote of 15-4. As the attorneys general wrote in their letter, shield laws are needed to “advance a public policy favoring the free flow of information to the public.”
The only serious question about this bill’s passage is why the Senate leadership hasn’t brought it to the floor.