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DO YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO GATHER NEWS?
In a 1972 case concerning a subpoena seeking to force a reporter to reveal confidential sources, the Supreme Court stated that "Without some protection for seeking out news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated." In separate opinions, three dissenting justices also advocated special newsgathering privileges for the media. They argued that: "A corollary of the right to publish must be the right to gather news. The full flow of information to the public protected by the free press guarantee would be severely curtailed if no protection whatever were afforded to the process by which news is assembled and disseminated. . . . News must not be unnecessarily cut off at its source, for without freedom to acquire information the right to publish would be impermissibly compromised." Unfortunately, the dissenting view did not carry the day, and the plurality opinion stated that "newsmen have no constitutional right of access to the scenes of crime or disaster when the general public is excluded." (Branzburg v. Hayes) In two subsequent cases involving media access to prisons, the Supreme Court declined to extend this access right any further. The majority of the court concluded that as long as restrictions treat the media and public equally, they raise no constitutional questions. (Pell v. Procunier; Saxbe v. Washington Post) More recently, however, the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings that the public and media have a First Amendment right to attend criminal judicial proceedings have reinforced the idea that newsgathering is constitutionally protected. One concurring justice pointed out that "an arbitrary interference with access to important information is an abridgement of the press freedom protected by the First Amendment. . . . The First Amendment protects the public and the press from abridgement of their right of access to information about the operation of their government." Access to such information promotes free discussion of public affairs and the media act as "agents" for the public in gathering and disseminating such material. (Richmond Newspapers Inc. v. Virginia) In another case, the Court held that because the right to publish news depends on the ability of the media to gather information, restrictions on the right to gather news diminish the right to publish. (Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court) Some lower courts have granted the media special newsgathering privileges in specific situations where the public does not have access. But most of these decisions fail to clearly define the scope and nature of these privileges. (See, e.g., Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. v. National Transportation Safety Board)
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