Sometime Thursday morning - when a television reporter was convicted of criminal contempt in Providence, R.I., for refusing to identify his source - the prospect of First Amendment rights to a free press took a step back.
The reporter, Jim Taricani of WJAR-TV, faces up to six months in prison for protecting his source who leaked an FBI tape of a city official taking a bribe.
Technically, what happened to Taricani is allowed for under judicial interpretations of the First Amendment. In airing the tape repeatedly, however, Taricani broke no law. Disputably, he was well within his First Amendment right.
Unfortunately, this isn't a new problem. Confidential source protection cases come up periodically. So, U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres, who convicted Taricani, wasn't breaking new judicial ground.
In fact, the problem is so old that some states protect their native journalists under something called shield laws. Since the U.S. government has no federal shield law in place, states are free to determine how best to protect journalists, if at all.
What is up for question is the degree to which Torres followed the pre-established test laid out by the U.S. Supreme Court for such cases. Typically, judges only compel journalists to reveal their sources as a last resort. The test stipulates that every investigative method be used to find the information first, only then can a judge bring the reporter in.
We can't help but agree with Taricani, who called the conviction an "assault on journalistic freedom." The press, first and foremost, needs to have the freedom to do its job as outlined in the First Amendment.
If journalists are truly to serve as a watchdog of the American government, they'll need any help they can get. Inadequate disclosure laws and large gaps in shield laws, protection have helped shelve both investigative journalism and prospects of open government.
It doesn't help that 30 percent of Americans think the press has too much power already, according to the First Amendment Center. If anything, cases like Taricani's should prove otherwise.
Imagine for a second that you were a confidential source. Would you ever trust the media again if some judge forced a journalist you trusted to rat you out? Most likely, no. At its top, journalism can do amazing things to keep our government honest.
Imagine what would have happened if some judge shifted the focus off Watergate, forcing The Washington Post's Bob Woodward to identify Deep Throat. Sometimes even federal investigators have to borrow a page from the press before launching their own investigation to police the government. And sometimes, the use of the confidential source itself is what spurs corrections to government corruption or other lurid practices. In the interest of keeping a free press and an open government, two cornerstones of the Constitution, reporters' rights to source confidentiality need to be upheld.
Without a fully functional press, the government would fall easily into corruption. Until federal legislators get serious, define the rights of the press and pass standardized federal shield laws we can expect nothing less.
