shield laws – Techdirt (original) (raw)

How Much Do Journalist Shield Laws Matter When A Journalist Is Murdered?

from the protecting-sources...-and-journalists dept

Jeff German, a forty-year veteran investigative reporter residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, was murdered earlier this year, allegedly by a local government official whose actions had received recent criticism in articles bylined by German.

Robert Telles, a county official, has been arraigned in the murder of the journalist, something prosecutors claim was prompted by German’s reporting.

A prosecutor told a judge last Thursday that Telles left his own cellphone at home and waited in a vehicle outside German’s home until the attack. It was characterized as a planned response to articles that German wrote about “turmoil and internal dissension” in the county office that handles the property of people who die without a will or family contacts.

After articles appeared in May airing claims of administrative bullying, favoritism and Telles’ relationship with a subordinate staffer, Telles lost his bid for reelection in the June primary. County lawmakers also appointed a consultant to address complaints about leadership in the office.

The murder of a journalist in the United States isn’t unheard of, but it’s still fairly uncommon, at least when compared to the killing of journalists in other parts of the world. This relative rarity means shield laws — meant to protect journalists’ sources and source materials from government snooping — have rarely been tested, at least as far as criminal investigations go.

The prosecution of Robert Telles is taking things in a dangerous direction, as Alanna Madden reports for Courthouse News Service. Although Nevada has one of the most robust journalist shield laws (one made even stronger after the state’s top court extended this protection to independent journalists), the law has (fortunately) never been tested quite like this.

Police matched Telles’ DNA under German’s fingernails, located evidence in his home and identified his car near the crime scene, and since his arrest on Sept. 7, Telles has remained jailed without bail for murder. However, Telles has pleaded not guilty, and the defense and prosecutors are attempting to access German’s seized property.

The state law definitively protects journalists who are still alive. Those who are deceased or, in this case, murdered, don’t appear to be quite as covered. There may still be some coverage, but it’s unclear what it covers, who can invoke it, or how it will be applied to the German’s possessions and recordings, which are being targeting by both prosecutors and Telles’ defense team.

“What’s interesting about this situation is the fact that number one, the journalist’s phone was seized, in part at least, to investigate his murder,” said professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota Jane Kirtly. “And number two, that the Nevada shield law does not explicitly seem to protect the notes and other documentary materials of people once they have died. The statute does make reference to former journalists. So, I suppose an expansive interpretation of that might include somebody who has passed away.”

Since no one seems to know exactly how the judge handling the case will read the law, German’s employer is doing what it can to protect information gathered by the murdered journalist. It has filed a motion indicating it retains legal possession of German’s finished and unfinished work, including everything used to create that work. It then had to go back to the court to request an emergency protective order after law enforcement threatened to search German’s devices by October 4 if no court order had been obtained.

The injunction was granted but the presiding judge has ordered all parties to reach some sort of agreement. The Las Vegas Review-Journal says any agreement approved by all parties would let the government do things the state’s shield law says it can’t. Here’s George Freeman of the Media Law Center paraphrasing the current conundrum:

“It would be tragic and backward if, after a journalist gets murdered by a government official who he’s about to do a story on, the same government that the murderer was part of, is able to get the confidential records and information from the murdered journalist,” said Freeman.

Should a shield law prevent the prosecution from gathering evidence that might secure a conviction simply because the victim was a journalist? Should someone accused of a crime involving a journalist be restricted in their defense by a law that might provide access to exculpatory evidence? Can the government be trusted to not abuse its access if it’s granted? And will permission to search in this case encourage the government to ignore the shield law if it can plausibly argue a journalist is either close enough to a criminal act to justify a search or a victim of crime necessitating the search of their possessions?

All of this is up in the air at the moment. And there are no easy answers. While it may be easy to blithely state the government doesn’t need this access, any denial would have to extend to the person accused of a crime, which would implicate their rights to a fair trial. But neither should this tragedy give the government (and a former government employee) a blank check to root around in a journalist’s protected work material simply because he’s no longer living.

Whatever the solution ends up being, it has to be better than the one proposed by the judge handling the murder trial, which would give the Metro PD full access as part of the so-called “taint team.” Loading a taint team up with cops doesn’t do much to limit the chance of abuse. The team should be far more impartial and not composed of current members of law enforcement. The newspaper has suggested a two person taint team composed of the judge and a former district attorney — neither of whom should have any reason to root around for information they shouldn’t have access to.

Above all, everyone involved needs to remember that unique tragedies tend to result in bad laws and bad rulings. First and foremost, the victim was a journalist. And that should be the watchword as the prosecution moves forward. Serving the cause of justice should be no excuse for introduction of new injustices.

Filed Under: jeff german, journalism, murder, nevada, robert telles, shield laws

On Speech And Subpoenas, New York Giveth And Taketh (Now, The Bad News On Journalist Protection)

from the unappealing-jurisprudence dept

Having just written about a good New York ruling concerning third-party subpoenas and the ability to protect free speech, now we have to write about some less good news: the recent decision by New York’s highest court undermining the protection afforded by the state’s shield law.

Shield laws are critical to preserving a free and independent press because they enable journalists to resist testifying about the non-public aspects of their reporting, or having to turn over their notes and related work product. This ability to resist is what empowers them to promise anonymity to sources, which often can be the only way for news the public needs to know about to come to light. If journalists couldn’t resist, or had to risk going to jail in order to try, it would inhibit their reporting and leave the public less able to learn about matters of public concern. Yet unfortunately this decision by the New York Court of Appeals invites just such a result by interfering with journalists’ ability to avail themselves of the protection ostensibly afforded by the state shield law. (Note: New York confusingly labels its lowest court the Supreme Court. The highest court is instead known as the Court of Appeals. The Appellate Division is in the middle.)

As frequently happens with tough cases involving important First Amendment interests, the underlying facts of this case are awful: Conrado Juarez has been charged with the gruesome 1991 murder of his four year-old niece. The case remained unsolved until DNA evidence made him a suspect. After fourteen hours of interrogation, he purportedly confessed. He now claims that the confession was coerced, and prosecutors want to use the notes and testimony of New York Times reporter Frances Robles, who had interviewed him, to challenge his claims. The trial court originally refused her motion to quash the subpoena demanding she provide the notes and testimony, but the Appellate Division overruled that decision and quashed it. Only now the Court of Appeals has overturned the Appellate Division’s ruling, thus making the subpoena once again enforceable.

In overturning the Appellate Division’s decision the Court of Appeals found that the reporter had no right to appeal the original denial of her motion to quash the subpoena by the trial court. If she had no right to appeal the trial court’s decision, then the Appellate Division had no ability to reverse it. [p. 2] But even if this Court of Appeals finding that she had no right of appeal were truly consistent with chapter and verse of New York appellate procedure (the dissent believes it isn’t [Rivera dissent p. 8-9]), it’s still a remarkably formalistic conclusion that gives short shrift to the significant substantive rights at stake.

Formalism isn’t of course inherently bad; careful adherence to procedural rules can sometimes help protect substantive rights better than ad hoc short cuts can. These rules exist in order to further the administration of justice, and the Court of Appeals itself fairly makes this point: by limiting the ability to appeal in criminal matters, it keeps the administration of justice from being bogged down unfairly through appellate gamesmanship. [p. 2]

But justice isn’t furthered by being a slave to interpretations of procedural rules so at odds with why we have the rules in the first place. Or, as in this case, so indifferent to the rights of those these rules were never intended to govern ? namely, the third parties affected here and whose interests the Court of Appeals seems so hostile to [p. 4-5]. Or so arbitrary in their application and effect.

That arbitrariness is well on display here. First, the no-appeal rule the Court cites only applies to criminal cases, not civil ones, [p. 2], which suggests that if this case had not involved a prosecution, the reporter apparently could still have appealed a lower court’s refusal to quash a subpoena without problem. Next, the rule limiting appeals does not apply to subpoenas issued as part of investigations of criminal matters. [p. 3] So, if they hadn’t already begun to prosecute the defendant, the reporter also likely could have appealed a refusal to quash a subpoena.

In addition, if this case had originally broken the other way, and the trial court had originally quashed the subpoena, then per this rule, if applied consistently, it would have been the government who could not have been able to appeal that ruling. Obviously this particular result would be protective of journalists, but for the no-appeal rule to be applied this way it still makes journalists’ protection entirely contingent on the judgment of trial courts. And that’s a problem, because trial courts are not infallible. If they were, then there would be no need to have any appeals courts at all. We have these courts because sometimes lower courts get things wrong, as this one did here, and there needs to be some way to set things right when they do. But what the Court of Appeals is saying in this case is that when it comes to subpoenaing journalists (something that the NY legislature passed the shield law in order to prevent), if this subpoenaing happens as part of a criminal trial, then journalists will be entirely dependent on that trial court getting the decision whether to quash it perfectly correct in the first instance, because its decision on the matter will not be one that can ever be reviewed.

For shield law protection to be meaningful it needs to have adequate rights of appeal baked into it, in all situations where journalists may need to assert it. True, in the context of criminal trials journalists might be able to recover the right to appeal as part of their challenge of a contempt order seeking to punish their refusal to comply with a subpoena. But if journalists are forced to risk jail to assert their shield law protection effectively, then the protection the shield law affords is hardly effective.

The Court of Appeals seems to think that a legislative fix is the way to go to make it explicit that there is always a right of appeal. [p. 5] And there may also be the possibility of challenging a subpoena as part of an “Article 78” civil proceeding, although, as the dissent notes, forcing journalists to go this route does nothing to advance the speedy-trial interests the majority’s “no appeal” rule is supposed to advance (nor is it clear that an Article 78 proceeding would necessarily be an effective option).

In any case, the alternatives available to a nonparty seeking some type of appellate review of the denial of a motion to quash will likely result in even greater delay of the criminal proceeding than would a direct appeal of a quashal motion. The two avenues left open to a nonparty to contest a denial would be a CPLR Article 78 action in the nature of prohibition or for the nonparty to simply fail to comply with the subpoena and seek appellate review of the subsequent order of contempt. In either case, if the prosecutor or defendant needed the nonparty?s evidence, they would wait until the resolution of the collateral proceedings. [Rivera dissent p. 11]

But the problem is that journalists should not be in the situation where their right and ability to resist subpoenas the shield law is supposed to protect them from are so uncertain. In order to be consistent with the First Amendment and similar principles enshrined in the New York Constitution, principles that the shield law seeks to vindicate, the right to appeal any trial court denial should be implicit, since the effect of barring these appeals so significantly impinges on the free press the public needs.

Sadly, however, this sort of decision ? procedural formalism over the effective preservation of substantive speech rights ? may be par for the course for the New York Court of Appeals these days. This case is not the first one where the Court of Appeals has reached a conclusion that puts substantive speech rights at risk because of the way it has limited the appellate rights of third parties. In fact, it justified this shield law decision by citing another case it decided last year where Facebook, as a third party, had tried to quash 381 Stored Communications Act “warrants” seeking information about its speakers. In that case, Facebook had been similarly denied a right to appeal the denial of its motion to quash, and for generally similar reasons as those cited in this case now.

We’ve written before about troubling effects that arise when shield law jurisprudence collides with attempts by platforms to protect the anonymity of their users. The questions of whether journalists can resist subpoenas and whether platforms also can are separate and distinct, and, as such, are often best resolved according to separate and distinct reasoning. After all, the right to a free press and the right to speak anonymously often affect liberty interests in different ways. Plus, as we saw in the Glassdoor case, when both the district court and the Ninth Circuit unhelpfully conflated the two sets of questions and used the reasoning for journalist subpoenas to drive its analysis of platform subpoenas, it used the weak reasoning in the former context to undermine the constitutional protection of anonymous speech in the latter. And in this case now we see further problems with conflating these issues, only this time in reverse, with the earlier Facebook case about platform subpoenas and anonymous speech now negatively shaping this case about journalist subpoenas and the right to a free press.

On the other hand, both anonymous speech and free press cases affect the interests of third parties and both vindicate important First Amendment rights upon which public discourse depends. Both therefore deserve to have had these critical rights treated with more care than the New York high court lately has afforded them.

Filed Under: conrado juarez, frances robles, free speech, journalism, new york, shield laws, source protections

Shield Law Moves Forward, Defines Journalism So That It Leaves Out Wikileaks & Random Bloggers

from the this-is-a-mistake dept

There have been debates on a setting up a special journalist shield law for many years, and every time it comes up it leads to something problematic, as various supporters suddenly want to narrowly define what a journalist is, often in a manner that carves out new forms of media. And, indeed, it appears that’s exactly what happened this morning in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Eventually, the bill passed out of committee with a much broader definition than some feared, but one that still tries to define who is a journalist very specifically — in a manner that “carves out” the specific kinds of journalism Congress doesn’t like, such as Wikileaks.

The new amendment, brokered by Sen. Chuck Schumer, significantly expands on that definition. Now, a journalist would be defined as someone employed by or in contract with a media outlet for at least one year within the last 20 years or three months within the last five years; someone with a substantial track record of freelancing in the last five years; or a student journalist.

In addition, the law would protect a person deemed appropriate by a federal judge, so long as their newsgathering practices have been consistent with the law.

This is better than it could have been, and giving judges the ability to go beyond the narrow definition is at least better than the alternative. However, it still is an attempt to carve out certain types of journalism that Congress is uncomfortable with — and frankly, I’m rather uncomfortable with Congress thinking that its role. Chuck Schumer flat out said that he wanted this definition to exclude Wikileaks — which is an operation that many of us believe absolutely is a journalistic operation.

“The world has changed. We’re very careful in this bill to distinguish journalists from those who shouldn’t be protected, WikiLeaks and all those, and we’ve ensured that,” Schumer said at the time. “But there are people who write and do real journalism, in different ways than we’re used to. They should not be excluded from this bill.”

In fact it seems like a good part of the hearing this morning was an attempt for Senators to show their contempt for the types of journalists they don’t like. Senator Feinstein, who has been pushing for a very narrow definition for a long time, suggested at the hearing — as if it were self-evident — that no 17-year-old high school drop-out with a blog should be covered. But why? What if that high school drop out does actual journalism and breaks a story about, say, government corruption? Why shouldn’t she be covered? Senator Jeff Sessions went to ridiculous lengths, arguing that journalists who reveal classified info shouldn’t be covered. In other words, those who do real investigative journalism and expose government wrongdoing wouldn’t be considered journalists if his amendment had passed (thankfully, it didn’t). But, as Senator John Cornyn pointed out, just the fact that you had the Senate debating who should and who shouldn’t be a journalist should be “chilling to us all.” Though, of course, even Cornyn wanted to only cover journalists who are Americans.

In the end, what passed is extremely flawed and definitely not a step in a good direction. Once we reach the point at which we even allow Congress to set parameters for who should, and who should not be considered a journalist, we’ve gone too far. Because we know that setting that precedent will lead to further encroachments down the road. Furthermore, the current definition will almost certainly not protect journalists when they need it most, in stories involving “national security,” more or less making this law a dead letter on arrival.

We’ve long advocated that any shield law shouldn’t try to define journalists by their profession, but rather should focus on journalism by the process and actions taken. That makes much more sense, since today anyone can do journalism, even if they’re not employed as a journalist.

However, the more I’ve seen this process play out, the more I’m convinced that any media shield law is a bad idea in that it tries to set up a separate tier of free speech in which a certain class of people or certain actions are “more protected” than others. The argument that we already have a media shield law known as the First Amendment is an increasingly compelling argument.

Filed Under: bloggers, chuck schumer, dianne feinstein, jeff sessions, john cornyn, journalism, journalists, shield laws, wikileaks

Sen. Dick Durbin: Journalists Deserve Protection But We'll Decide Who's Actually A Journalist

from the trade-your-laptop-in-for-a-notepad-for-extra-journo-cred dept

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has penned an editorial for the Chicago Sun-Times in which he argues that journalists need some form of government-granted protection, but that the government should decide who is a real journalist and who isn’t.

As he points out, there is currently no national “shield” law that protects journalists and their sources, although a bill along those lines is slowly making its way through the system. Durbin seems to feel a great many people should be excluded from this protection, though — possibly for no other reason than the platform used.

The media informs the public and holds government accountable. Journalists should have reasonable legal protections to do their important work. But not every blogger, tweeter or Facebook user is a “journalist.” While social media allows tens of millions of people to share information publicly, it does not entitle them to special legal protections to ignore requests for documents or information from grand juries, judges or other law enforcement personnel.

There’s your new have-nots, if Durbin’s deciding. Here’s the list of who Durbin feels actually deserves the “journalist” label and its associated protections.

A journalist gathers information for a media outlet that disseminates the information through a broadly defined “medium” — including newspaper, nonfiction book, wire service, magazine, news website, television, radio or motion picture — for public use. This broad definition covers every form of legitimate journalism.

The internet: illegitimate journalism. Journalism isn’t a static object with a single definition, it’s something people do, with or without the title, and the dissemination of these endeavors spans many platforms. While there are a lot of old school journalism outlets listed, Durbin also includes “news website,” which covers a whole lot of gray area (Buzzfeed? TMZ? Vice?). Without further details, it would appear a “news website” will probably have to be anchored by one of the other “time-honored” journalism outlets.

If a newspaper journalist writes a blog on the side or maintains a Twitter account, are those sidelines protected because of his or her position, or is it only what appears on the printed page/associated news website? Or conversely, if someone’s journalism efforts are mainly relegated to platforms not covered by Durbin’s list but occasionally contribute to “legitimate journalism,” does that cover the non-associated online work as well? No matter how these instances play out, “journalism” is being defined by media form rather than by the activity itself. While the government should recognize freedom of the press and grant protection to journalists, it becomes problematic when the definition is narrowed to pre-existing forms that don’t truly reflect journalism as it exists today.

Durbin says that those who think the government shouldn’t be able to define journalism need to be reminded that 49 states already do just that. That doesn’t make these definitions better or more acceptable and certainly shouldn’t be taken as some sort of tacit permission for the federal government to define what media forms it will protect and which it won’t.

He goes on to cite recent events as evidence this protection is needed.

The leaks of classified information about the NSA’s surveillance operations and an ongoing Justice Department investigation into who disclosed secret documents to the Associated Press have brought this issue back to the forefront and raised important questions about the freedom of speech, freedom of the press and how our nation defines journalism.

Journalists should certainly be shielded from those who think they should be prosecuted for exposing leaked documents. But this administration isn’t interested in protecting whistleblowers and, if it wasn’t running up against existing “freedom of the press protections,” would probably be punishing journalists as well. Allowing the government to pick and choose who is protected will likely result in a large number of unprotected journalists, thanks to an inadequate definition. And even this additional protection is unlikely to prevent entities like the DOJ from violating the Fourth Amendment in a search for sources and whistleblowers. If you’re already violating civil liberties, breaking a law isn’t much of a concern.

Filed Under: dick durbin, first amendment, journalism, shield laws

Indiana Court Says Anonymous Commenters Deserve High Standard Before Being Exposed, But Aren't Necessarily Protected By Shield Laws

from the seems-reasonable dept

A few months ago, we wrote about a case in Indiana involving an attempt to unmask an anonymous commenter on a newspaper website who effectively accused someone of embezzlement. There were a few legal questions involved in the case, and the one we had focused on involved the newspaper itself trying to protect that commenter under Indiana Journalism shield laws. At the time, we’d argued that the shield law should probably be limited to cases where the individuals actually were acting as a source… and that basic First Amendment case law could handle the anonymity question outside of the shield law.

It looks like the court effectively agreed with just about everything we said. The court rejected the shield law argument, but not in a broad way saying that commenters aren’t protected under the shield, but that this comment wasn’t really a “source” in any meaningful way, and the newspaper didn’t use the comment as the basis for any additional reporting. However, the court pretty clearly suggests that in other cases, commenters could be considered sources and could be protected by shield laws.

However, perhaps more importantly, the court set a relatively high bar for unveiling the anonymous commenter — adopting the Dendrite rules that give the anonymous person a chance to respond and which require the plaintiff to present a significant amount of evidence that the comments violate the law before any unmasking is ordered. While the Dendrite rule still is not standard, it is spreading, and it’s nice to see Indiana adopt it as well.

Filed Under: anonymous speech, commenters, dendrite rules, indiana, journalism, shield laws

Should Online Newspaper's Comments Be Protected By Journalism Shield Laws?

from the are-they-sources? dept

Having just discussed whether or not journalism shield laws should apply to random bloggers, it’s worth noting an interesting case going on in Indiana, where the key question is whether or not such a law applies to comments on a newspaper website. The paper, the Indianapolis Star, is arguing that Indiana’s shield law protects anonymous commenters in the same way that it protects sources. After all, anonymous commenters can be sources. Of course, it may come down to the specific language in Indiana’s shield law. A more interesting question is should such laws protect anonymous commenters? I’d argue that the First Amendment should, generally speaking, protect most anonymity, so I’m not sure a specific shield law provides much more that’s useful beyond that. However, if you were definitely applying such shield laws to comments, perhaps it should just be limited to cases or individuals who actually are acting as sources (i.e., providing news) in the comments.

Filed Under: comments, indiana, journalism, newspapers, shield laws

Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?

from the key-distinction dept

Mathew Ingram has some excellent coverage of a bad ruling in Oregon, wherein a blogger was found not to be covered by the state’s shield law (protecting her ability to hide sources) because she wasn’t affiliated with some big media organization:

…although defendant is a self-proclaimed ?investigative blogger? and defines herself as ?media,? the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law.

Mathew’s post covers a number of other recent cases that have been more broad in saying who counts as a journalist. And, of course, there have been attempts at creating a federal shield law for journalists.

But what really strikes me about this, is that a ruling like this seems to be looking at the wrong issue. It’s not about whether or not it protects journalists, but whether or not it protects journalism. That is, in a few similar rulings, it always seems to come down to the affiliations of the person — with the claim from some that if they’re not working for a “media organization” then it means that “everyone” is protected by the shield law. We can discuss whether or not everyone should be covered by such a law, but even that misses the point (in a big way). The fight isn’t over who should be covered, but what. The point is to protect journalism. And journalism is defined by the action, not the person or their affiliations. Anyone can do journalism — associated or not. This does not mean that everything is journalism, however.

For example, I’ve noted plenty of times that I am not a “journalist.” However, at times, I most certainly engage in journalism.

This can be true of almost anyone. If what they are doing for the sake of gathering some information is in the process of gathering that information to better inform the world of a subject, I think it’s fair to call it journalism. However, that does not make the protections so broad that everything can be kept secret. In such situations, information can be revealed when it was not done specifically for the purposes of informing the public.

Unfortunately, this distinction between journalism and journalist seems to get lost all too often in these discussions, and it’s why we get bad decisions like this one.

Filed Under: bloggers, journalism, journalists, shield laws

Can Alcoa Get Reporters' Notes Under Open Records Laws If The News Organization Is Connected To A State University?

from the protecting-journalists-vs.-freedom-of-information dept

JJ points us to an interesting situation in North Carolina. Apparently, Alcoa, the aluminum giant, is demanding all of the reporting documents associated with a segment done about the company, concerning its attempt to renew its 50-year lease for its facilities on the Yadkin River. Now, normally, a news organization wouldn’t turn over such information, but there’s a bit of a twist here. The reporting was done by UNC-TV, which is connected to the University of North Carolina. Thus, Alcoa makes the case that it is subject to North Carolina’s “Open Records” laws, and it appears that the folks at UNC-TV are realizing they need to comply.

This certainly raises questions about how any news organization that is somehow connected to a gov’t entity can feel its reporting is protected. This is also worth remembering as we keep hearing more and more newspapers insist that government subsidies are the best way to save newspapers. Doing so could, potentially, open up similar claims by private entities wishing to dig deeper into a reporters’ notes.

Filed Under: freedom of information, journalism, north carolina, open records, shield laws
Companies: alcoa, unc-tv

Is A Documentary Investigative Reporting? Should Filmmakers Be Covered By Journalist Shield Laws?

from the seems-reasonable... dept

While there are still ongoing arguments over whether or not bloggers should be considered journalists when it comes to keeping their sources and source materials confidential, there’s another arena impacted by all of this as well: documentary filmmakers. A judge has ordered a documentary filmmaker to turn over “cut” footage to Chevron from the filmmaker’s documentary about Chevron’s involvement in pollution of the rainforest in Ecuador. Chevron believes that there may be footage that will help it get a lawsuit filed against the company by Ecuadorians dismissed. While the filmmaker argued that the works were protected, the judge shot that down in saying that since there were no confidentiality agreements signed, that the material is not confidential. That seems like a rather broad ruling over whether or not a journalist can protect their sources. Do all journalists now need to sign confidentiality agreements with sources?

Filed Under: documentaries, journalism, movies, shield laws
Companies: chevron

Professor Tries To Get Info On Newspaper Commenters

from the shield-laws dept

There have been a bunch of lawsuits lately testing the boundaries of various “shield laws” that protect journalists from having to give up information on sources. There was one recent case that found that even comments on online newspaper articles could be protected by shield laws, as those commenters represented a source. However, a professor in Montana is suing to try to find out the identity of some commenters on a local news article (found via Citizen Media Law Group). The professor had recently lost a lawsuit, and believes that one of the commenters was on the jury — and that particular comment (which was posted before the case was decided) suggested he had done independent research and believed information (that was false) in making his decision. So, in seeking a new trial, the professor wants the identity of the commenter in question. Attorneys for the professor claim that the juror admitted to writing the post in an affidavit, though the juror now says he did not. Either way, apparently the strong shield laws in Montana mean that the newspaper probably won’t have to give up the info.

Filed Under: comments, journalism, newspapers, shield laws