Archive Report
Archive Report
Protection of News Sources in Courts
A reporter as a rule will decline to tell a court, a legislative committee, or other inquirer the name of a person who has given him information used in a news story without attribution. Yet the so-called newsmen's privilege has no more than limited legal standing. Neither the common law nor the federal or state constitutions recognize a right on the part of reporters to refuse to identify a news source at the bidding of competent authority. Certain state statutes alone extend the privilege to journalists within the jurisdiction of state courts.
All the same, most reporters will go to jail rather than disclose the identity of an informant, and the newspapers for which they work will almost invariably support ...