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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.

    Reporter's Privilege

    This section covers the use of subpoenas to force journalists to disclose their confidential news sources and unpublished information. Shield laws exist in forty states; if a reporter isn't covered by a shield law, there may still be a constitutional privilege that helps protect sources and information. This section also covers official attempts to seize journalists' work product and documents without a warrant.

    Amended Arkansas shield law will protect more reporters

    Kacey Deamer | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | April 6, 2011
    Kacey Deamer
    Feature
    April 6, 2011

    The Arkansas governor signed late last month an amendment to the state shield law that will protect television and Internet reporters from the compelled disclosure of their sources. The amended act will go into law 90 days after the state legislature officially adjourns.

    Privacy Act suit based on leak to Detroit reporter dismissed

    Lyndsey Wajert | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | March 25, 2011
    Lyndsey Wajert
    Feature
    March 25, 2011

    A federal judge ended a lengthy legal battle that centered around a reporter's confidential sources yesterday when he dismissed a former federal prosecutor’s lawsuit against the Department of Justice.

    W.Va. shield bill passed, awaits acting governor's signature

    Kristen Rasmussen | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | March 14, 2011
    Kristen Rasmussen
    Feature
    March 14, 2011

    The West Virginia Legislature passed a state shield law for reporters over the weekend. The bill will now go to acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin for his signature. If signed into law, West Virginia would become the 40th state, along with the District of Columbia, to provide statutory protection to subpoenaed reporters.

    Right to cross-examine trumps reporter's privilege

    Kristen Rasmussen | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | March 11, 2011
    Kristen Rasmussen
    Feature
    March 11, 2011

    The restriction of a criminal defendant’s cross-examination of a reporter who invoked his privilege not to testify, but was compelled to do so anyway, violated the defendant’s constitutional right to confront witnesses against him, a federal appellate court ruled earlier this week.

    Reporter wins subpoena battle in street performer's suit

    Kristen Rasmussen | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | March 9, 2011
    Kristen Rasmussen
    Feature
    March 9, 2011

    A Boston Globe reporter is privileged from having to testify about her coverage of the city’s crackdown on street performers, a federal court ruled earlier this week.

    Ind. media ordered to reveal idenities of website posters

    Rachel Costello | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | March 3, 2011
    Rachel Costello
    Feature
    March 3, 2011

    A Marion County, Ind., court ruled that news outlets can be ordered to disclose identifying information about those who post anonymously on the news outlets' websites.

    Court finds defendant's interest overcomes shield law

    Kacey Deamer | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | February 17, 2011
    Kacey Deamer
    Feature
    February 17, 2011

    A New York Supreme Court judge in Brooklyn ruled in early January that the New York Daily News must disclose to the court in chambers the source of information related to the case, despite the state's shield law, which provides journalists with the privilege to protect the anonymity of sources. In New York, the Supreme Court is a trial-level court.

    High court refuses to hear case involving prosecutor's investigation of pain-relief advocate

    Standard governing subpoenas for speech activities remains unknown
    Feature
    Page Number: 
    30
    Kristen Rasmussen

    From the Winter 2011 issue of The News Media & The Law, page 30.

    Siobhan Reynolds said she has been living “in a constant panic” for the past few years — a difficult-to-describe “madness” she never thought would come at the hands of her government.

    The News Media and The Law, Winter 2011

    In the age of new media, who counts as a journalist?

    New Jersey Supreme Court case reinvigorates issue
    Feature
    Page Number: 
    27
    Rosemary Lane

    From the Winter 2011 issue of The News Media & The Law, page 27.

    Avi Adelman considers himself a journalist.

    He has blogged for 12 years about the proximity of restaurants and bars to his neighborhood in the lower Greenville Avenue area of east Dallas.

    He posts entries to his blog, BarkingDogs.org, about once per week. The blog has about 1,200 subscribers and the Dallas Observer often picks up his pictures.

    The News Media and The Law, Winter 2011

    Texas judge upholds shield law in criminal case

    Lyndsey Wajert | Reporter's Privilege | Feature | January 28, 2011
    Lyndsey Wajert
    Feature
    January 28, 2011

    A state judge in Texas earlier this week quashed a subpoena ordering a journalist to testify in a murder trial, in a rare test of the reporter's privilege in criminal courts since Texas enacted its Free Flow of Information Act in 2009.

    Defense attorneys argued that, as shown by her articles, Donna Fielder, a staff writer for the Denton Record-Chronicle, was privy to essential information that would refute investigators’ testimonies concerning the defendant.