Forum explores media freedoms Protecting confidential sources key focus of conference at UMaine

ORONO – In the face of government crackdowns on security in the post Sept. 11, 2001 era, journalists need to be especially diligent in their roles as public watchdogs, a noted media expert said Wednesday.

“In my estimation the highest form of patriotism for a journalist is to be a good journalist and ask the tough questions and make government accountable,” Jane Kirtley, a media law professor at the University of Minnesota, told a group of about 100 people at the University of Maine on Wednesday. “It is not aiding and abetting terrorism to ask the government to account for what it is doing.”

Kirtley was among several law and media experts to speak at the first William S. Cohen Forum titled “The Media Threatened? Protecting the Free Flow of Information.”

Part of protecting the free flow of information, Kirtley argued, is protecting the identities of confidential news sources and, when appropriate, fighting government subpoenas for information gathered by reporters.

“That’s the kind of thing that makes journalists very nervous,” she said of a recent instance in which a Department of Justice official advised several news organizations that, under the newly passed anti-terrorism measure – the USA Patriot Act – they would be compelled to produce their notes to aid in the government’s investigation of a computer hacker.

That notice was later rescinded with an apology from the official, who did not receive the proper authorization before sending the letter, Kirtley said.

But a prosecutor’s interest in justice sometimes requires journalists, who have little special protection under the law, to testify before a grand jury and, in some instances, name confidential sources, said Stephen Higginson, an assistant U.S. attorney in Louisiana.

“We don’t want to take on the press,” said Higginson, explaining to the crowd at Minsky Recital Hall that such subpoenas are more likely to be rejected by the court than those issued to witnesses without the “journalistic privilege.”

Richard Dudman, a newspaper reporter for 31 years with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said that while he believed reporters should protect confidential sources as a rule, he didn’t agree with state shield laws giving reporters blanket immunity from revealing those sources.

He cited several instances in which government officials, in his estimation, abused the protection for political gain by leaking stories to the major newspapers about Saddam Hussein’s capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.

That capacity turned out to be questionable at best, but the goal of building support for the war at a critical time was achieved, Dudman said.

The forum’s keynote speaker, Stephen Bates, a former prosecutor and editor of the Wilson Quarterly, has written extensively on the often adversarial relationship between government agents and press.

“Both believe their work serves society, a belief [however justified] that sometimes engenders self-righteousness, obstinacy and hypersensitivity,” Bates said, reading from his 2000 research paper, “The Reporter’s Privilege, Then and Now.” “The battle … demonstrates not only how much journalists and prosecutors differ, but also how much they are alike.”