Though the Supreme Court concluded that the First Amendment does not provide a journalists¿ privilege in grand jury proceedings, 49 states have adopted a journalists¿ privilege in various types of proceedings. Journalists have no privilege in fed. proceedings. This report discusses how Congress has considered creating a journalists¿ privilege for fed. proceedings, and bills to adopt a journalists¿ privilege were introduced in the 110th and 111th Congresses in both the House and Senate. These bills generally would provide for a more narrow privilege than the privileges provided by state laws. This is a print on demand edition of an important, hard-to-find report.

Shepard examines how subpoenas for newsgathering information have raised both old and new legal and ethical problems for journalists seeking to protect confidential sources. He explores the ethical and legal evolution of journalistic privilege drawing on cases from the 19th century, the First Amendment principle that emerged in the middle of the 20th century, the public policy implications debated in congressional hearings in the 1970s, and the rise and fall of common law protections in the federal courts between 1972 and 2003. He also interviews key journalists and media lawyers in recent privilege cases. In tracing the development of the journalist's privilege from colonial times to the present, Shepard finds a dynamic interaction among journalism ethics, free-press theory, and legal jurisprudence that supports qualified legal protections for journalists.

Protecting journalists' sources confidentiality helps the press in fulfilling its watchdog function. Disclosing these sources in front of the courts of law serves the interests of the justice. This book analyzes the case law, the statutory instruments and the journalists' professional codes of conduct in United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights and the United States to see how these jurisdictions accommodate these two legitimate and competing interests. The book examines the theories behind the journalists' privilege, the procedural issues surrounding the matter and the scope of protection. This book will be of interest to lawyers, students, scholars, journalists and policy makers.

Absent a statutory or constitutional recognition of journalistic privilege, a reporter may be compelled to testify in legal, administrative, or other governmental proceedings. To date, thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have recognised a journalists' privilege through enactment of press 'shield laws', which protect the relationship between reporters, their source, and sometimes, the information that may be communicated in that relationship. The journalists' privilege is distinct from other recognised privileges, in that the privilege vests only with the journalist, not with the source of the information. This book provides an overview of general trends among the states individual statutes. It also presents the full text of the state shield statutes and the First Amendment.