A state lawmaker introduced a bill Tuesday that would keep courts from forcing journalists to expose their confidential sources.
The proposal from state Rep. Joe Parisi, D-Madison, would prevent judges from issuing subpoenas to reporters about their unnamed sources or information gathered during the reporting process from those sources.
?The reason I introduced it is because it is important to protect not only reporters when they have confidential sources, but to protect the public also,? Parisi said.
According to Parisi, the bill would provide security to people who step forward with information about problems that could be harmful to the public.
Bill Lueders, news editor for the Isthmus and president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said reporters don?t use anonymous sources without a compelling reason.
Court cases over the years have upheld reporters? rights to keep sources anonymous, but the bill would create protection in state statutes, rather than just case law, for the journalists, according to University of Wisconsin journalism professor Robert Drechsel.
?But because it is court-made privilege, if you will ? it could be punctured at any time,? Drechsel said.
Drechsel added the bill provides a very strong privilege for the media, so strong he is skeptical about whether the measure could get through the Legislature.
Parisi, however, said he thinks introducing the bill now, just before the end of the legislative session, will allow it to gain public and legislative support for work next session.
After the August 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall on the UW campus, an editor who printed a letter from the bombers claiming credit for the attack was jailed when a judge demanded he turn over their names in relation to another incident.
According to Lueders, that is one of several cases in Wisconsin where courts have attempted to force reporters to reveal their sources, though Drechsel said, in his knowledge, ?we don?t have any indication that there?s been any serious problem about probing for confidential sources in the state.?
Lueders added most reporters he knows would ?love to go to jail to protect a source,? and that having the opportunity to demonstrate their principles to the agents of government would ?be one of the greatest things they could imagine happening in their careers.?
