Dear Editor,
In order for journalists to feel safe pursuing news-worthy stories, they need the ability to assure their sources that their identities will be not be revealed. If they are not provided with this basic right, then it would not be beneficial or safe for them to pursue the articles and stories that should be persisted the most.
The first Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which ensures freedom of speech decrees that the freedom of the press is necessary in order to encourage an informed public. Some argue that national security and that a defendant’s rights to a fair trial trump a journalist’s rights but the freedom of the press proves otherwise.
Many states have already started in the right direction by passing a State Shield law, however, until there is a Shield Law on a federal level, then journalists cannot be certain that they will be safe from prosecution for the identities of their sources. According to Merriam Webster, a Shield Law by definition is “a law that protects journalists from forced disclosure of confidential news sources.”
Currently in the U.S. majority of the states have some form of a state-level Shield Law in place, with varying levels of type of protection and strength of coverage. “Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia have some form of a Shield Law” according to Justin Silverman of the Citizen Media Law Project.
This means that only thirteen states have not granted some form of protection to their journalists. The list of those that do not guarantee this protection includes: Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Mississippi, West Virginia, Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
If so many states, far more than half, believe that a journalist should have protection from being forced to reveal sources in a court of law, then why has this issue not been revisited in the highest courts of our country in more than 40 years?
This issue was argued in the case of Branzburg v. Hayes in 1972. At the time the Supreme Court “held that (1) there is no privilege to refuse to appear before a grand jury until the government demonstrates a compelling need for the testimony; and (2) there is no privilege to refuse to answer questions that directly relate to criminal conduct that a journalist has observed and written about.”
Our country is in far different place than it was 40 years ago and with that it has very different needs than was necessary at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court’s previous decision.
First Amendment Scholars James Thomas Tucker and Stephen Wermiel, who have argued in behalf of a Federal Shield Law, have pointed out the very issue with having differing restrictions and protections between the state and federal level. Their position states “A host of different approaches were adopted at the state and federal levels …what has resulted is a lack of uniformity and uncertainty that can lead to different results for the same set of facts.” Without the clarity that would come from a Federal Shield Law, journalists cannot bring forth the information that should be responsibly available to the public without fear of being dragged into court and ordered to break confidences and out valuable sources.
Sincerely,
Stevie LaBelle
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