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    Digital Journalist's Legal Guide
    Tablet and mobile phone showing news online

    Everything online journalists need to protect their legal rights. This free resource culls from all Reporters Committee resources and includes exclusive content on digital media law issues.

    Anonymous sources

    Fox News reporter may return to Colo. courtroom to defend confidential sources

    Lilly Chapa | Reporter's Privilege | News | April 3, 2013
    Lilly Chapa
    News
    April 3, 2013

    Subpoenaed Fox News journalist Jana Winter will have to return to a Colorado courtroom to possibly testify about who gave her sealed information in the James Holmes case, a judge ordered Monday.

    However, Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour said in Monday’s hearing that he intends to make Holmes’ lawyers “jump through all the hoops” before forcing Winter to share who gave her details of a notebook Holmes sent to his psychiatrist days before he allegedly opened fire in an Aurora movie theater, killing 12 people.

    Reporters Committee exec director warns of chilling effect as government tracks reporters' sources without subpoenas

    Press Release | September 12, 2011
    September 12, 2011

    Federal subpoenas of reporters could wane as the administration finds other ways to track down their confidential sources, writes Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Executive Director Lucy Dalglish in the latest edition of The News Media & The Law.

    State high court extends media protection to mortgage website

    Cristina Abello | Reporter's Privilege | Quicklink | May 6, 2010
    Cristina Abello
    Quicklink
    May 6, 2010

    The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday reaffirmed that a website covering the mortgage industry has the same First Amendment protections as traditional media.

    White House asks reporters to stop citing anonymous sources

    Christine Beckett | Newsgathering | Quicklink | April 19, 2010
    Christine Beckett
    Quicklink
    April 19, 2010

    White House press correspondents have been asked to stop the practice of citing anonymous government sources in their work, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told CNN on Sunday, The Hill reported.

    Gibbs finds no reason why reporters cannot find attributable sources in the administration and talked about a policy where officials will not comment on stories where there are anonymous sources used.