I. Introduction: History & Background

Missouri has not adopted a shield statute for reporters, but a proposed law is working its way through the Missouri legislature in the spring, 2007, session, so it is possible it will pass and by August, 2007, Missouri will join the states that have a qualified privilege. This will be a significant improvement in this area of the law for this state, inasmuch as the law prior to this time has been murky and not necessarily consistent throughout the state.

While in the last three years, there has not been any development in case law in regard to the reporters' privilege, there has indeed been litigation on the subject, but none has gone to the level of a court of record. One high profile case involved a subpoena of a reporter who had interviewed a suspected murderer. The State listed the reporter as a prospective witness and the defense then wanted to subpoena the reporter to find out what he knew about the case, despite that the story he wrote was of his interview with the defense attorneys' own client. Fortunately, in that case, the suspect pleaded guilty to a lesser-offense before the deposition could occur.

Another high profile case involved the photographs of a University football practice session shot by a newspaper photographer, who happened to get the collapse and subsequent death of a player in the course of documenting the session. The father of the victim sought to subpoena the unpublished photographs of the photographer, and he was joined by the University who decided that accessing these unpublished photographs might be a good idea. After a lower-court unfavorable decision, and realizing the likelihood that an appellate court would not create new law in this area, the newspaper chose to release the unpublished photos on its website before releasing all of the photographs to the father's attorney.