Washington State is preparing to consider legislation that will give special protection to professional information providers, but not to citizen-journalists who provide news content as a hobby or side-activity.

The fact that New York Times reporter Judith Miller's badge of courage has been tarnished does not diminish the need for shield laws to protect journalists' use of anonymous sources in the legitimate pursuit of information.

Congress would do well to pass a national shield law that allows states to adopt broader protections. In the meantime, Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has proposed a bold but reasoned shield law for professionals in this state.

The legislation already has an impressive list of sponsors going into the legislative session that begins Jan. 16., including Sens. Adam Kline, D-Seattle; Stephen Johnson, R-Kent; Karen Keiser, D-Kent; and Dave Schmidt, R-Mill Creek.

McKenna proposes absolute protection against court-ordered disclosure of an anonymous source and qualified protection for a journalist's work product -- unpublished notes, photos and tape recordings. The measure would set conditions for disclosure in criminal or civil cases.

The proposal also is valuable in that it would define members of the "news media" as those in the regular business of disseminating news or information to the public and who earn "a substantial portion of his or her livelihood" that way. Included in that definition are researchers and scholars.

The reason journalists need such a shield is because information is an essential check when governments go too far.

Unfortunately, the definition leaves out those of us in the blogosphere who engage in citizen-journalism with no salary. It would provide less protction to student-jpurnalists on college newspaper than to their professional colleagues. And it would permit a journalist to withhold a source in a criminal case even when doing so could result in a miscarriage of justice.

Ultimately, journalists are no different than any other citizen of the United States. Laws regarding subpoenas and the production of information in criminal and civil cases must apply to them in the same fashion as they do to every other American.

Posted by: Greg at 12:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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