Shield Law progresses -- and SPJ was there!
This morning, a proposed federal shield law that would help journalists protect confidential sources sailed out of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 15-2.
One of the dissenters: Sen. Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican SPJ members also known as "Senator Secrecy." The other? Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.
Some things to note:
- Several people deserve credit for this important legislation. I have been referring to this Senate version of the shield bill as the Specter Schumer Lugar Dodd Leahy Bill. I commend each of these senators for their work to ensure the issue of a shield law remained a priority for discussion.
And let's not forget the people who voted to support the measure:
Leahy, Kennedy, Biden, Kohl, Feinstein, Feingold, Schumer, Durbin, Cardin, Whitehouse, Specter, Hatch, Grassley, Graham, Cornyn
For what it's worth, two senators abstained: Brownback and Coburn.
- Sen. Kyl tried to sink this bill by saddling it with 46 -- yes, 46 -- amendments. While Sen. Kyl said misdirection of his staff was to blame, I'm not so sure ... Fortunately, such silliness didn't reign supreme.
- Look for more discussion about the definition of a journalist. Yes, this is where things will become sticky. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who has been a true champion of reform of the federal Freedom of Information Act (he'll be speaking to SPJ members this afternoon ...), said that he wants to ensure "journalists" to whom the shield would apply are more clearly defined. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, agreed. Right now, the bill's language is very broadly worded -- as we hope it will remain. However, it's clear that politicians aren't comfortable with my favored definition of journalist which boils down to this: "Anyone gathering information for the purposes of distributing it."
As you would expect, similar conversation is happening in the U.S. House of Representatives, where another version of a shield law is still being worked on. Sponsoring Reps. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) are crafting definitions that run along the lines of (and I'm paraphrasing wildly here): "Someone who practices journalism regularly and derives his or her primary source of income from that practice."