Shield Laws and Non-Traditional Journalists

Richard Campbell – Author, Media and Culture

Shield laws represent an interesting case, particularly in this era of citizen journalism where you have a lot of people doing journalistic work who aren’t considered traditional journalists.

James Rainey – Reporter, Los Angeles Times

The whole question of what to do with shield laws and protections that journalists now have in big media organizations and how they should apply to citizen journalists is going to be one of the most difficult questions for the courts in the coming years. 

Frank LoMonte – Attorney, Student Press Law Center

All but one state in the country have on their books a shield law that protects you as a news gatherer, as a journalist, from being compelled by the government to turn over your notes, to turn over film that you haven’t aired, to reveal confidential sources. There are laws against the search of newsrooms and the search of computers and of premises that contain the fruits of your news-gathering. All of those things have been put into place to protect journalists. And there’s an open question right now that is being worked out by the policy makers and by the courts as to how far those protections are going to go for people who are nontraditional journalists.

James Rainey

In most cases if someone is a real journalist, if they have an ongoing presence where they’re writing about current events in the news and they’re using video and other means to get it, I’d say yes, they should have a protection. But I think the courts are going to have to decide where the line is.

Frank LoMonte

One of the sticking points for a long time has been will we protect the person who commits journalism, but does it for no pay, who commits journalism, but does it outside of the umbrella of a traditional corporate news entity?

James Rainey

It is a problem that’s going to be a difficult one because I don’t think we can have everyone having the heightened protection. Otherwise, there would be sort of chaos, a free-for-all, no one held to account for anything. And I think the way the laws are written now, there’s just about the right amount of control.

Frank LoMonte

At the Student Press Law Center, of course, we think that a student, even one who is doing journalism for no pay, as long as they are gathering news that is intended to be shared with a larger audience, ought to be protected by a shield law, ought to be able to say to a confidential source, “I promise you your identity won’t be revealed,” ought to be able to say to an authority figure, “I can’t give you my notes.” 

James Rainey

I think if someone takes a videotape and they didn’t have any way of showing that they were already in a journalistic enterprise, did they decide at that moment well, I just took my first videotape? And I may have on tape here an image of someone who committed a crime. No, I don’t think they should be entitled to a shield like someone who’s worked at a newspaper for ten years or at a radio station or for a Web site for a decade. I think it’s a different situation.

Bedford/St. Martin's Video Transcript