A Different Angle On Chronicle Reporters' Plight
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White’s decision to sentence San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada to 18 months in prison is, predictably, generating a lot of noise from newspaper editorial boards. The San Francisco Chronicle, obviously, is calling for a federal shield law and denouncing White’s decision.
The Oregonian calls the decision an act in the “criminalizing of investigative journalism.” “…As has become distressingly common in investigations and lawsuits around the country, the journalists are facing jail time for doing their jobs,” wrote the Washington Post’s editorial board on Friday, also heeding the call for a federal shield law for journalists. Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky argued along the same lines for a federal law in the Orlando Sentinel: “Putting these reporters in jail serves no purpose other than to chill investigative reporting that informs the public about important social and political issues.”
Those calls for a federal shield law come as the Senate recently decided to postpone consideration of such a measure following Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he strongly opposed the adoption of such a law. "In imposing a burden of proof on the government, it places a thumb on the scale in favor of the reporter's privilege and tips the balance against executive branch judgments about the nature and scope of damage or potential damage to our nation's security," he said. (You can read his prepared statement here.)
At least one journalist, however, has a different sort of headline about this story: “Reporters doing what they have to -- and so is judge.” While he sympathizes with the plight of Fainaru-Wada and Williams,CBSSportsline national columnist Greg Doyel isn’t rallying for a shield law or denouncing White’s decision:
The Oregonian calls the decision an act in the “criminalizing of investigative journalism.” “…As has become distressingly common in investigations and lawsuits around the country, the journalists are facing jail time for doing their jobs,” wrote the Washington Post’s editorial board on Friday, also heeding the call for a federal shield law for journalists. Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky argued along the same lines for a federal law in the Orlando Sentinel: “Putting these reporters in jail serves no purpose other than to chill investigative reporting that informs the public about important social and political issues.”
Those calls for a federal shield law come as the Senate recently decided to postpone consideration of such a measure following Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, during which he strongly opposed the adoption of such a law. "In imposing a burden of proof on the government, it places a thumb on the scale in favor of the reporter's privilege and tips the balance against executive branch judgments about the nature and scope of damage or potential damage to our nation's security," he said. (You can read his prepared statement here.)
At least one journalist, however, has a different sort of headline about this story: “Reporters doing what they have to -- and so is judge.” While he sympathizes with the plight of Fainaru-Wada and Williams,CBSSportsline national columnist Greg Doyel isn’t rallying for a shield law or denouncing White’s decision:
Orders are orders, and laws are laws. And whether you like it or not, whoever leaked that testimony broke the law. And now, by refusing a judge's orders to identify their source, Fainaru-Wada and Williams are in contempt of court. That, too, is the law...
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