The Free Flow of Information Act, also known as the ‘shield bill,’ would protect news reporters from disclosing confidential information, if enacted.
The U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary is scheduled to consider the federal bill Thursday.
‘The bill creates at least a rubric, a way in which we can find some protection in certain cases,’ Mary Flood, legal reporter for the Houston Chronicle, said.
The bill was introduced in the Senate on Feb. 13, and calls for the maintenance of ‘the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons connected with the news media.’
But the bill wouldn’t only protect ‘professional’ journalists.
‘One of the good things about the bill, which isn’t clear in the state law, is that student journalists and bloggers would be covered,’ UH professor David McHam said. ‘I think what will happen is that the bill will say that under certain circumstances, people who blog and student journalists would be covered by the shield.’
Freelancers, who would be protected under the federal bill if enacted, are not covered in Texas.
‘(State law) doesn’t protect everyone who calls themselves a journalist,’ Flood said.
According to the state law, not everyone who practices journalism is a journalist. Texas House bill 670 defines a journalist as being someone who writes ‘for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain.’
‘One of the big problems with that is that it conflicts (with) other areas of the law,’ McHam said.
One of those areas is the U.S. Constitution. Flood said that the U.S. civil courts and criminal courts have said that the First Amendment protection for journalists does not exist in Texas.
‘It seems that the protections we did have, as vague as they were, were being eroded,’ Flood said.
Houston Chronicle investigative reporter Lise Olsen said without a state shield law, it was possible for government officials to subpoena or threaten to jail reporters who refused to reveal their sources for stories.
But under the state shield law, journalists now have the right to keep sources confidential in certain cases. However, the state law does not cover situations of libel, nor would the federal bill.
‘It’s still a matter of law in libel cases that if you, as a reporter, report something that is libelous from an unnamed source, you would have to come forward and say who that source is,’ McHam said. ‘All it’s going to do is protect people from information, not from libelous information.’
Just as the federal shield bill would do, the state shield law protects journalists as well as their sources.
‘I think it is important as a journalist to be able to offer some promise of protection to whistleblowers and other sources who sometimes risk their jobs, their reputations, their relationships – or even their lives – to help expose wrong-doing or corruption,’ Olsen said.
Even though protection is given to journalists and sources under the state law, there are exceptions.
‘A very sophisticated source would realize that there are holes in the shield law,’ Flood said. ‘If the district attorney thinks that a crime has been committed, you don’t have anything; the shield doesn’t even exist.’
Although Texas has a shield law, McHam said that the federal bill is still important to be passed, as 13 states do not have any type of shield law.
‘Any protection you can get in certain cases is necessary,’ McHam said.
McHam also said the bill is not only about protecting the journalist, but also the source of the information, which is crucial in some circumstances.
