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.

In our age of media revolutions, Patrick M. Garry offers guidelines for constitutionally redefining the press, and maintains that the First Amendment press clause must broaden the scope of its freedoms to include the communication activities of a much larger public.

In this history of debate over journalistsOCO confidential sources, starting in 1894, Smith employs contemporary theories of constitutional interpretation to weave a surprising narrative melding legislature-made statutory law and court-made constitutional law. Working under the banner of popular constitutionalism, Smith tests Michael GerhardtOCOs theory of non-judicial precedents to illuminate the role journalists and press advocates played in shaping the path of constitutional law and giving voice to deeply felt First Amendment values. Along the way, the author corrects the historical record in important ways, including recasting events that led to the nationOCOs first shield law in 1896."

Most Americans consider a free press essential to democratic society, either as an independent watchdog against governmental abuse of power or as a wide-open marketplace of ideas. But few understand that far-reaching public policies have shaped the news citizens receive. With contributions from leading scholars in the fields of history, legal scholarship, political science, and communications, this revised and updated edition of Freeing the Presses offers an in-depth inquiry into the theory and practice of journalistic freedom.

A healthy democracy requires vigorous, uncompromising investigative journalism. But today the free press faces a daunting set of challenges: in the face of harsh criticism from powerful politicians and the threat of lawsuits from wealthy individuals, media institutions are confronted by an uncertain financial future and stymied by a judicial philosophy that takes a narrow view of the protections that the Constitution affords reporters. In Journalism Under Fire, Stephen Gillers proposes a bold set of legal and policy changes that can overcome these obstacles to protect and support the work of journalists. Gillers argues that law and public policy must strengthen the freedom of the press, including protection for news gathering and confidential sources. He analyzes the First Amendment’s Press Clause, drawing on older Supreme Court cases and recent dissenting opinions to argue for greater press freedom than the Supreme Court is today willing to recognize. Beyond the First Amendment, Journalism Under Fire advocates policies that facilitate and support the free press as a public good. Gillers proposes legislation to create a publicly funded National Endowment for Investigative Reporting, modeled on the national endowments for the arts and for the humanities; improvements to the Freedom of Information Act; and a national anti-SLAPP law, a statute to protect media organizations from frivolous lawsuits, to help journalists and the press defend themselves in court. Gillers weaves together questions of journalistic practice, law, and policy into a program that can ensure a future for investigative reporting and its role in our democracy.

More than any other people on earth, we Americans are free to say and write what we think. The press can air the secrets of government, the corporate boardroom, or the bedroom with little fear of punishment or penalty. This extraordinary freedom results not from America’s culture of tolerance, but from fourteen words in the constitution: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment.InFreedom for the Thought That We Hate, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Anthony Lewis describes how our free-speech rights were created in five distinct areas—political speech, artistic expression, libel, commercial speech, and unusual forms of expression such as T-shirts and campaign spending. It is a story of hard choices, heroic judges, and the fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face to face with one of America’s great founding ideas.

In this history of debate over journalists¿ confidential sources, starting in 1894, Smith employs contemporary theories of constitutional interpretation to weave a surprising narrative melding legislature-made statutory law and court-made constitutional law. Working under the banner of ¿popular constitutionalism,¿ Smith tests Michael Gerhardt¿s theory of non-judicial precedents to illuminate the role journalists and press advocates played in shaping the path of constitutional law and giving voice to deeply felt First Amendment values. Along the way, the author corrects the historical record in important ways, including recasting events that led to the nation¿s first shield law in 1896.