Threatened Reporters

Though the U.S. press enjoys as much freedom as any in the world, a reporter's right to keep sources of sensitive information confidential remains a tense and crucial issue. When pressed by grand juries, prosecutors or judges to tell more than they are willing to print or broadcast, newsmen have traditionally claimed absolute immunity under the First Amendment, which broadly protects the press against Government regulation. The Supreme Court last June smashed that shield in a 5-4 ruling that journalists have no guaranteed immunity against compelled testimony before a grand jury.

The long-range effect, many fear, will be to cripple the kind of tough investigative reporting that serves as an unofficial check on government at all levels. New York Times Newsman Earl Caldwell, one of the principals in the cases brought to the Supreme Court, goes even further. "Now," he said last week, "it's really impossible to do serious reporting in the U.S. if the Government doesn't want you to."

Dubious Shelter. Caldwell's grim view is still being tested. The art of the expose has not suddenly disappeared with the decision. The Chicago Tribune, for instance, recently revealed massive vote fraud in Illinois (TIME, Sept. 25). Moreover, the Supreme Court told Congress and the state legislatures that they could write statutes giving full or partial immunity to newsmen under a variety of circumstances. A House Judiciary Subcommittee chaired by Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier last week completed hearings on a number of bills that would give newsmen considerable protection, at least in U.S. Government investigations. A new federal law might also serve as a model for state legislation (only 19 states now have immunity laws, and some of them provide dubious shelter).

Testimony by legislators, lawyers, press organizations and others overwhelmingly favored prompt congressional action. Without a sound law, they argued, sources of information would simply dry up out of fear of being exposed. Only the right of silence would leave the press free to fulfill its traditional watchdog mission. As one example, William Small of CBS testified that the network had been forced recently to drop a segment of a program on welfare fraud when it could not promise its informant anonymity.

The most poignant statement came in absentia from Peter Bridge, 36, who worked for the recently deceased Newark Evening News. Bridge went to jail last week for an indefinite period because he would not tell a local grand jury the identity of the culprit in a bribery story he had written. Ironically, New Jersey has an immunity statute, but it was narrowly interpreted in the Bridge case. "A person who is not a news reporter," said Bridge, "might wonder why it is so important to maintain the confidentiality of sources. I can testify that confidential sources are the single most important device in the effective gathering of information."

The only serious opposition to a federal law came from the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General

Roger Cramton told the subcommittee that a statute is unnecessary because guidelines issued by John Mitchell in 1970, while he was Attorney General, have sharply reduced the number of federal subpoenas being issued to newsmen. Cramton is correct, arithmetically. Early in the Nixon Administration, such subpoenas were being served by the dozen. They are now a relative rarity, but the threat of compelled testimony still exists in any reporting situation, and there is nothing to prevent a future Attorney General from scrapping the current rules. Nor does the present policy bind other federal agencies.

The Supreme Court ruling involved three reporters who refused to answer grand jury questions. Caldwell and Paul Pappas of WTEV in New Bedford, Mass., were summoned for questioning about what they had learned in their coverage of Black Panther activities. Paul Branzburg, then of the Louisville Courier-Journal, was interrogated about his sources for stories on local drug traffic. Despite the June ruling, no effort has yet been made to recall either Caldwell or Pappas for questioning. The reason, Caldwell speculates, is loss of official interest in the Panthers and a wish to avoid controversy with the press in an election year. Branzburg is under a six-month state contempt sentence, but he now works at the Detroit Free Press and refuses to return to Kentucky.

Because individual cases vary, drafting any legislation short of total immunity is a difficult task. Writing in the current Columbia Journalism Review, Fred Friendly, former president of CBS News, concedes that under certain extreme circumstances the right to silence must yield to the needs of law enforcement. Of the six bills now pending in Congress, the Kastenmeier subcommittee seems most sympathetic to one that would grant broad immunity but--cutting the other way--would also spell out those few situations in which reporters would have to testify. They could be forced to break confidences only if a crime had probably been committed, the information they possessed was unavailable elsewhere, and there was a "compelling and overriding national interest" in disclosure. Such a bill will probably be presented to the House early next year.

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