Nothing in journalism class had prepared me for it. The source I had been interviewing for my very first high school newspaper assignment had just pulled my notebook out of my hands and ripped out the pages containing our interview, shouting that if I wasn't going to report impartially, then he wasn't going to talk to me. I did the only thing I could think of I left, carrying my notebook with jagged margins where my notes had been.
Several days later, I returned to speak to the source. After 15 minutes of coaxing, and the promise of anonymity, he agreed to talk to me. One week later, though, when I eagerly opened the freshly printed issue, my stomach dropped. The editors had used an older version of the story and had forgotten to redact my source's name.
I had nightmares about the belligerent source beating down my doors and ripping all of my notebooks to shreds, stomping and shouting. The teacher who advised the newspaper staff warned me not to contact him, and in the end I never did hear from him nor did he suffer the consequences that he feared. I still learned, however, the terrible, gut-wrenching feeling that comes when you have broken a promise and betrayed a source. For a journalist, there is probably nothing worse. Your integrity, the only real tool you have to get people talking, has been damaged. And while I was just working for a high school newspaper, when you're a reporter for a major American newspaper whose protected sources could go to jail for the information they share that damage could be irreparable.
That's why the media shield legislation that was made public last Friday is so important. The bill, a result of negotiations among the Obama administration, Senate Democrats and a coalition of news outlets, outlines different levels of protection for reporters and unpaid bloggers, depending on whether the case brought against them is civil, criminal or a matter of national security, according to The New York Times. In civil cases, the burden is on the complainants to show that their need for information outweighs the public interest in uninhibited reporting. In contrast, criminal and national security cases put the burden on reporters.
That the burden is on reporters in two of the three scenarios is still far from ideal. The recognition that reporters have a right to defend themselves in the face of a government subpoena is, however, a crucial step forward in the fight to secure full protection for journalists. Crying "national security" alone is no longer enough for the government to obtain a subpoena; officials must provide specific information showing that the identity of a source is crucial to preventing or mitigating a terrorist attack or some other homeland security threat.
Journalists' ability to protect their sources is fundamental to their mission to inform the public. The media is the fourth, unofficial component of the checks and balances system that our democracy hinges on. Without anonymous sources willing to provide the crucial link between the media and backroom proceedings, the vital watchdog function of news outlets would cease to exist. When government can't appropriately regulate itself, the media should be there to provide ordinary citizens with the information they need to hold their elected officials accountable.
Coming from Illinois, where at times the Chicago Tribune seems to be the last thing standing between the Democratic political machine and an unassailable dictatorship that runs on bribes and clout, I can attest to the importance of this function. For those unfamiliar with Chicago politics, try to imagine Watergate without Deep Throat: Nixon might have cheated and connived his way into a second term in office were it not for Woodward and Bernstein's anonymous tipster.
Despite the obvious importance of the journalist-source relationship, we learned in 2005, with the jailing of Judith Miller, just how precarious the position of an American reporter trying to protect her sources is. Jailing journalists is behavior that we expect from oppressive and tyrannical governments in China or Iran, not in America, where Thomas Jefferson famously declared, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter."
The media shield legislation is a necessary protection for journalists who perform an essential service for our country and a reaffirmation of the importance of a free press for a thriving democracy. Hopefully the Senate will not hesitate to pass it.
