Reporters Privilege                       

Brief

Reporters Privilege in my eyes is a principle that states that reporters or journalists of that sort are not forced to provide the courts with any information that they received from their informants. Even though reporters are regular people as well, it is the simple fact that they aren’t. Once they are forced or served with a written order, their lives could potentially be at risk: like harm towards their well-being could be at risk, their family could also be at risk of insecurity, and lastly their career could be dissolved.

 

Shields law

As mentioned earlier, reporters lives are put at risk for disclosing on private information that they only know, but as a reporter it is always the code of law to not divulge their notifier. After much consideration of the reporter’s code, their safety, and career, the Shields Law was created. Though the first amendment has been around since 1791 and it was generalized as a law that provides everyone with the “Liberty to talk”, but it did not hold much weight in court.

 

The Shield Law was established in 1979, and it SHIELDS reporters from disclosing content that was given to them that pertains to them composing an article and/or story. Crazily said, this law is very looked down upon when it comes to a criminal or judicial matter due to the severity of the case. Another thing to add is that this law only protects those who are journalist and or reporters that write for public consumption and less.

 

Different Variations of the Shield Law in action

According to (mtsu.edu), the shield law may look slightly different from state to state. This means that though the shield law is made to SHIELD reporters from having to defend themselves in court, a particular state can provide them with a complete dismissal or they could make them provide a little bit of details on the case.

            

For example, in Minnesota they have a law set in place that is called Free Flow of Information Act to which means that if the case includes any kind of slander that the privilege of having the Shield Law could be potentially forgot about in court. Though the Free Flow of Information Act is something that Minnesota encourages when a malediction is involved in the case, they are still lenient to actually go forward with the ruling unless the information needed had no other way to be spotlighted.

 

Fairness of Reporter’s Privilege Laws

Many believe that reporters shouldn’t be able to opt out of spilling the beans in court, especially when a life or law is at stake. My take on this is like what I mentioned earlier about the risk put upon the reporter’s life from telling someone else’s truth. The Shield law does not absolutely shield them from confessing in some cases, while in others they’re able to go scotch free. Without reporters, we would have no news and without the informants, we would have no journalists to spread or advocate the news. Overall, journalists do the grimy work for us and all we must do is stay invested in the drama. They’re the real saviors.