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shield law

Despite the complaints of blogger-critics, new federal shield bill is last best chance for meaningful protection of reporters’ confidential sources.

Peter Scheer September 17, 2013

For the first time since the post-Watergate era, the stars are aligned for Congress to enact–and for the President to sign–a “Shield Law” that would provide meaningful protection against the forced-exposure of journalists’ confidential sources. Although nearly all states have shield laws, they do not apply to the subpoenas of federal courts and federal grand juries: a big gap in coverage that inevitably restricts news reporting on controversial matters involving the federal government. News of

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Opinion: Son of late Nevada governor harassing reporter in court

donal brown April 26, 2012

Jeff Guinn, the son of the late Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, is so unhappy with the reporting of a lawsuit brought against him by investors that he is suing the reporter claiming she was bribed with personal favors to pursue the story. The problem is that even after losing in lower court, Guinn has appealed to the state Supreme Court, in effect, creating a disincentive for reporters to aggressively report the news in the public’s

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Bloggers’ ranting style protects in free speech cases but may hurt in other realms

donal brown November 8, 2011

Bloggers may win victories in defamation cases since their heated critical commentary is easily identified as opinion rather than fact and not libelous, but the advantage may have a serious down side, writes John Sharkey for the Citizen Media Law Project. Sharkey is concerned that in ruling for bloggers in defamation cases,  judges are making disparaging  comments about blogging, saying in one case that “blogs are a subspecies of online speech which inherently suggest that

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Innocence project decision takes liberties in defining ‘journalist ‘ under the First Amendment

donal brown September 12, 2011

By ruling that Northwestern University journalism students  had to surrender internal e-mails concerning their efforts to free a man convicted of murder in 1978, Cook County judge concluded that the students were “investigators” working for the defense. In a commentary for the First Amendment Center, Gene Policinski points out that the First Amendment does not specify anything about the differences between reporting and investigating. “Nothing in the First Amendment defines a ‘free press’ in terms

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Reality TV tries to invoke shield law in denying evidence to defense attorneys

donal brown January 13, 2011

SF Weekly January 12, 2011 By Lauren Smiley A reality TV show, truTV’s ‘Bait Car’, teamed with San Francisco police to bust car thieves but are now citing California shield law for journalists in refusing the turn over footage to defense attorneys. A media expert says that because of the arrangement with San Francisco, the show’s personnel are not acting as journalists so do not warrant the protection of the shield law. -db

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