II. Authority for and source of the right

The source for the Shield Law protections in Colorado are found in C.R.S. § 13-90-119, which grants a qualified privilege protecting newspersons from subpoenas in judicial proceedings. See also, C.R.S. §§ 24-72.5-101 through 106 (qualified privilege to newspersons in administrative proceedings), addressed more fully at Section II D. The privilege created by the Shield Law are similar to those at common law. In order to trump the privilege, the information sought must be a) integral to the case; b) not available from any alternative source; and c) the need for the information outweighs the prevailing First Amendment interest. Before the Colorado legislature's enactment of the Shield Law protections in 1990, many state trial courts had acknowledged the existence of a common law privilege. See, e.g., Jones v. Woodward, 15 Media L. Rep. 2060 (Denver Dist. Ct. 1988) (using qualified privilege to grant reporter's motion to quash subpoena). However, the state appellate courts had weighed in on the privilege issue, asserting that there was no privilege under the Colorado constitution. See Pankratz v. District Court, 609 P.2d 1101 (Colo. 1980) (a reporter must testify before a grand jury because he was the only witness to criminal conduct); Gagnon v. District Court In & For Cty. of Freemont, 632 P.2d 567 (Colo. 1981) (defendant/reporter required to provide confidential source and documents in defamation action because information was "clearly relevant").