[A] bill to protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources and information passed the Senate on Wednesday.
The so-called media shield would prevent courts and other bodies with subpoena power from forcing journalists to say who provided confidential information. Senators said information provided by whistleblowers and confidential sources has been critical in exposing wrongdoing and that the proposal is designed to protect those sources from retaliation.
The bill passed 29 to 0 and will head to the House after a final procedural vote in the Senate later this week. Sen. Richard McCormack, D-Windsor, was absent.
Vermont is one of 10 states with little protection for journalists.
“We’re not pushing the envelope here. We’re really catching up” to protections in other states, said Paul Heintz, of the Vermont Press Association. The Vermont bill was based largely on protections enacted in New York, he said. “I think it’s a huge improvement over the status quo.”
Heintz, who writes for Seven Days, said the motivation for pushing S.96 was subpoenas he and other reporters received in advance of last year’s trial of former Sen. Norm McAllister, a Franklin County Republican accused of sexual assault.
Heintz said protections for whistleblowers were also needed in light of comments by President Donald Trump, as well as efforts by former President Barack Obama, to crack down on government leaks by forcing reporters to identify their sources.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, said atrocities and government misinformation were exposed during the Vietnam War, including the My Lai Massacre, as the result of information from confidential sources.
Under the terms of the bill, reporters would have a “qualified” protection for information received nonconfidentially. In those cases, a reporter would be required to provide the information if it is “highly material or relevant” to a legal proceeding and could not be obtained from another source, and if there is a “compelling need” to disclose it.
Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, said some criminal cases might not be as easily solved, but he said the balancing act favored protecting the press from the chilling effect of being subpoenaed. The bill would apply to phones and email of journalists as well.
Heintz and other journalists were ultimately not forced to testify in hearings leading up to McAllister’s criminal trial. But in some cases those efforts were dropped or denied at the last minute, Heintz said, and only after news organizations had spent thousands of dollars on lawyers trying to fight them.
The legislation would apply to subpoenas issued after the bill becomes law but would cover information received prior to passage.
(Editor’s note: Anne Galloway, founder and editor of VTDigger.org, testified in favor of the bill.)
