Reporter's shield laws

Declan McCullagh declan at well.com
Sun Aug 26 12:06:55 PDT 2001


Also, along this line, I've posted some details abuot the 
Vanessa Leggett case here:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-02437.html

-Declan


On Sun, Aug 26, 2001 at 02:25:22PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 26, 2001 at 09:55:05AM -0700, Tim May wrote:
> > Except that all it takes is for the judge to grant the witness
> > transactional or use immunity. Or even full immunity (less common, from
> > what I hear).
> > 
> > "Mr. McCullagh, the court hereby grants you transactional immunity for
> > your testimony today. Now Mr. McCullagh, please answer the prosecutors
> > questions and give the court all of your notes made regarding this
> > witness."
> 
> I didn't assert the 5A, but the 1A, during my brief experience before
> the Grumpy Judge.
> 
> What Tim and Dave and John seem not to understand is that journalists
> routinely refuse to reveal their sources even when threatened with
> subpoenas and contempt of court. Some editors will only hire reporters
> who pledge they'll go to jail before revealing a source. Some
> journalists may be schmucks -- the local reporter in the Bell case who
> took the stand and blabbed for the better part of an hour is one
> example -- but many are principled. This may make prosecutors leery
> of calling them in the first place. Only 10-20 professional
> journalists in the last two decades have been imprisoned, usually for
> a period not exceeding a few days, for not revealing their sources.
> 
> See the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press for details.
> 
> -Declan





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