Gazette — Shield law crucial to Scrutiny

• By: ASNE staff
• On: 08/26/2008 12:18:21
• In: Shield law editorials

The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo.
August 24, 2008

When Congress returns from vacation in September, the Senate should take up the Free Flow of Information Act, which most people term a federal shield law for journalists.

A shield law simply provides that a reporter or other journalist who has promised conffdentiality to a source cannot be required by a grand jury or a court to reveal sources, or turn over notebooks and other information. Some 31 states have shield laws, including Colorado, but there is no shield law at the federal level. This is a significant deterrent to aggressive investigative reporting. Over the past four years more than 40 reporters have been threatened with contempt charges or jail time for protecting their conffdential sources, and a few have had to pay ffnes or serve time in jail, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Last week, the FBI admitted it had collected phone records of four reporters working in Indonesia for U.S. newspapers in ways that violated Justice Department policies. A shield law would be a deterrent to such investigative overreach.

To be sure, readers are best served when journalists use identified sources whenever possible. But confidential sources or whistleblowers can be essential to uncovering scandals and abuses of power. Recent stories about conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center and financial shenanigans at Enron, for example, would probably never have been written without confidential sources.

The House passed a limited federal shield law last fall by an overwhelming 398-21 vote. However, President Bush, citing national security concerns, has said he would veto such a bill, and the Senate has been reluctant to consider it unless it has a veto-proof majority.

The bill the Senate would consider has been modified to address all the legitimate concerns. The shield would not apply if the information a journalist has could prevent an act of terrorism or other significant harm to national security, if a court acquiring that information could prevent death or bodily harm, or if a journalist is eyewitness to a crime.

The shield law would not conflne the privilege to “official” journalists but would apply to anyone who regularly gathers information with the intent of disseminating it to the public. So bloggers, pamphleteers and even ordinary citizens doing investigative work to uncover abuse or push reforms would be protected.