In this CNN story, a blogger who refused to turn over video of a 2005 G-8 protect was just release after 226 days in jail, after making a deal with the prosecution. He turns over the tapes, but he doesn’t have to testify.
I can understand laws allowing reporters to withhold the name of a source. If someone knows that the government can find out who they are, they might be less likely to talk to a reporter.
But what is the line between a reporter and an average person? Can I make a few posts to a blog, and then use that as a reason not to turn over evidence? How about I sell a photograph to the local paper? If I stood on a corner and filmed someone committing a crime, and then sold part to the tape to the local news channel, can I stash away the rest, safe in my reporterhood? Should I be able to?
This bugs me too. I agree with the previous poster: shield laws should apply to everyone the same, or there shouldn’t be any such laws at all. I think the term “the press” in the first amendment is misunderstood by the public to refer to reporters, when it actually is just referring to the freedom to produce printed material.
I disagree. I’mm willing to give a small number of people (the Press) some protections. But when there has been a crime commited, I say get the info or let him rot in jail. There was a crime commited that might have been caught on his tape. He has a duty to society to hand the tape over. If he refuses, society is well within it’s rights to induce him to comlpy. And if he is called to testify in front of a Grand Jury and refuses to show up or testify, throw him in jail for that.
I agree that the press should be protected. But everyone is a member of “the press”. Everyone is entitled to freedom of speech, both written and spoken and over the internet and broadcast. Everyone is entitled to the same constitutional rights.
This isn’t a Constitutional question. ‘Reporter’s privilege’ has nothing to do with the First Amendment as far as I can tell. It’s a question of allowing the press to do its job. Some members of the press need to be able to promise anonymity to sources in order to get stories out and serve the public interest. Is it in society’s interest to compell members of the press to testify in one criminal case at the expense of those kinds of stories? I’m not sure it is. I also don’t think it’s in society’s interest to say “everyone is a member of the press” when that means nobody has to turn over evidence at a trial.
Reporters are “professionals,” but unlike most professions there is no licensing regime for them. Any literate person can, technically, function as a journalist. You don’t even need to be employed by a recognized media outlet; you can be a full-time freelancer selling stories to any paper that will buy.
If it involves refusing to testify in a criminal matter, “reporters” have no more rights than anyone else to withhold evidence.
Anyone who has witnessed something is fully eligible to be classed as a “reporter”. There is no priesthood of “reporters” (journalists, whatever) who have special rights and privileges over and above those of a common citizen.
The press exists as a watchdog on society. If they can’t do their watchdoging, then we lose out on what that brings to the table. Specifically, we wouldn’t know half of all the stuff that happens in our government if government employees didn’t feel secure to leak information to the press. True, none of that information can lead to a court trial, but still, it’s the only method the public has of knowing what their representatives are actually doing.
Watergate, Iran-Contra, Bush sanctioned torture and wiretappings; we wouldn’t know about any of these things if it weren’t for this.
I agree that freedom of speech includes a free press and their hirelings. It also includes a free people and its individuals.
Every individual exists as a watchdog on society. I have not delegated my responsibility as a “watchdog” to some idiot reporter. (I do not use the term “idiot” simply as a term of abuse. Have you actually met any reporters?).
Unless you’re willing to go beyond the smudgy newspaper sheets and the TV “news” and do a bit of fact checking of your own, then all you’ll ever know is what the media chooses to put in front of your nose.
Justice is important. Freedom of the press is important.
Can the two be balanced on a case-by-case basis? What is to be gained from a particular subpoena vs what are the risks to the reporter / whistleblower / and press freedom?
As for whether somebody qualifies as a “journalist”, IMO the test should apply to the particular incident or materials, not to an actual person. Shouldn’t matter if the person is a newspaper editor or an amateur blogger; neither should get blanket immunity (or lack thereof) from having to testify because it would be nearly impossible to measure somebody’s journalistismness at any given point in his/her life. (“Well, he wrote some articles for the school newspaper twenty years ago… we can’t make him testify!” Or, “Well, he was the only one who got the facts right and got the President impeached, but he’s just an independent blogger. Too bad for him!”)
Instead, maybe we should look at the actual crime/incident in question and the subpoenaed materials… is this a case of a fame-seeking individual withholding a street-corner murder tape for fun and profit, or is the same individual protecting a government whistleblower?
And this situation works both ways. What happens when the whistleblower isn’t acting in the public interest? Do we want to give individuals the ability to manipulate the press (and by extension, the people) through false leaks and still remain anonymous if we later uncover their lies and agendas?
In a perfect world, yes, every citizen would be a watchdog on his or her government. We don’t live in such a world. Flawed and imperfect as Big Media may be, it still does a job that Joe Citizen probably doesn’t care enough to do. You in particular might be different, but very few people that I’ve met in my life actually care about their governments; fewer still actively want to find out more about it and report it.
Ideally, of course, every citizen should care enough to find out what is really going on, but before they are convinced of that duty, current media outlets (both corporate and independent) might still be able to provide some useful information.
In any case, why couldn’t the law protect both “official” journalists and “free” people?
Well hey, you can want to believe that people will stand up and do the right thing all you want. But in general, most people won’t unless they don’t have to deal with any repercussions. Change humanity and I’ll agree with you. But I can’t say as I know anything about mankind to convince me that government leakers, corporate leakers, mafia leaks, etc. would come out if they thought they would end up on the witness stand.
Ultimately, even if everyone on the planet was actively interested in watchdogging the government and every single other person on the planet, how are they supposed to make a living doing that?
How is the president supposed to do anything when he has to spend every day answering questions to every single citizen who comes along?
How is anyone supposed to be able to afford making everything they have found out, public?
How are people who know something interesting supposed to find someone who can spread that information?
How are you going to encourage information for watchdogging, while not impeding criminal investigations?
Everybody, as a free citizen has the responsibility of dealing with people as they find them.
For my part, I refuse to delegate this responsibility, as a citizen, to some imagined class of human, “reporter” or whatever, with special privileges, to be my “watchdog”.
I have already stated that I have mingled (and got drunk) with many reporters. They prefer to call themselves “journalists”.
Most of them are borderline morons.
You are at liberty to believe everything you want to believe in your local paper and hear on your TV news.
Network all humans, end all privacy, share the sum of all human knowledge with all its members, and either equaly/fairly delegate all production tasks in a communistic fashion or create a slave race of robots to do our production work while we sit around, absorb nutrients and mentally evolve.
Whether you voluntarily delegate to them or not, you live in the same society and they might want to perform the same watchdog tasks you do. It just so happens that some of them choose to make a career out of doing that, perhaps devoting a higher percentage of their time to the task. Their intelligence is irrelevant; there are plenty of moronic non-journalists too.
This doesn’t make journalists a separate class of people, just people with different jobs and priorities. I do think, however, that professional journalists shouldn’t get more protection than hobbyist journalists unless a clear need for such is shown.
I guess what I’m really trying to say (re: Aquila Be’s class distinction) is that being a journalist doesn’t have to elevate someone into a higher “class”, it just marks them as belonging to a certain profession… somewhat like the difference between someone who picks up road trash when he goes hiking and someone who works full-time as a garbage collector.
Why all the hate for professional journalists? Is it possible that some of them are just trying to be watchdogs for people who are unable / too lazy to do it for themselves?
I don’t hate professional journalists, I 'm just not in favor of only allowing freedom of the press for government licensed journalists.
Everyone has the right to freedom of the press. And if journalists believe that protecting a source is more important than providing evidence of a crime, then they should take their contempt of court citation as a badge of honor.
But “I can’t testify because I promised my source he would remain anonymous” doesn’t deserve any more or less respect than “I can’t testify because I can’t rat out my buddy”.