EXCLUSIVE: Support builds for reporter ‘shield’ law

EXCLUSIVE:

A long-debated federal “shield” law to protect journalists who won’t reveal their confidential sources is poised to move a little closer to reality Thursday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans a mark-up session with the shield law at the top of the agenda, a committee source told The Washington Times.

“It is very significant that this is the first bill on the agenda. That tends to indicate that it is in a position of priority,” the Senate aide said.

A federal shield law offers journalists the right to refuse to reveal information they have obtained during the newsgathering process — and ultimately protects the public’s “right to know.”

Currently, 49 states have some form of common-law, statutory or rule-based protections for journalists — but there is no definitive federal legislation in place for those who choose not to reveal their sources. The House passed its version of the “Free Flow of Information Act” in March, but Senate action is needed for the bill to become law.

The aide said the bill enjoys strong support from Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, and a number of other members on the panel. Judiciary Committee members Sens. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, are among the original co-sponsors of the bill.

“The bill is a priority for a lot of members — including the chairman,” the source said. “We could charge right through it, and there’s a chance it could spill over to another session. But it is a priority.”

The protections in the bill for journalists and their sources would be “similar to those afforded to lawyers and their clients, clergy and their penitents, and psychotherapists and their patients,” according to the Society of Professional Journalists, which has raised $30,000 in the past year to build support for the law.

The bill has been slow in coming, with bipartisan forms of the legislation stalling in the legislation process in recent sessions of Congress.

Intense debates over the need for a federal shield law date back to the 1970s, with the arguments pitting the need to protect sources and promote the open debate in the press against national security and law enforcement concerns.

High-profile and heavily publicized cases of reporters jailed — or threatened with prosecution — put the legislation on the public’s radar.

Mr. Leahy has long been a champion of the legislation. Passage, the Vermont Democrat said in May, “will send a powerful signal to the entire world about this nation’s commitment to freedom of expression.”