I suspect I'm in a minority, perhaps a lone, here, but I don't see the need for a Federal shield law. In fact it may do more harm than good adding to the public impression that journalists are arrogant and consider themselves above reproach. There will always be a national security exception in such a law, and in the age of terrorism, that's a hole big enough for a Mack Truck to drive through. Should reporters be compelled to cough up their sources? Only rarely and for a damned good reason. Presently there are many options open to someone in this situation: getting the source to sign a consent agreement up front; getting informed consent at the time the problem arises; going to court to prevent disclosure; appealing unfavorable rulings; and negotiating a settlement short of disclosure with the government.

SPJ is fixated on this issue. Over the last few decades, the number of reporters that find themselves in this situation has been in the dozens, perhaps low hundreds. That's a tiny minority of the population of journalists. This problem will mostly arise in high profile national security or criminal cases. Most reporters will not experience this problem and are probably too busy doing their jobs to focus on it.

I agree with Mark - the public perception of journalistic arrogance is growing and that's not good for our future.
Regarding secret sources - that feeds into the cowboy, superhero journalist bringing down the big mean bad guys image some journalists crave or covet. But, think about it, why should a journalist trust someone not willing to go public with whatever information s/he has?
Some of the recent cases that have inflamed SPJ, et al, have ended up smearing egg all over several faces, while the public has been snoring thru the whole thing.

From my own experience, I'd rather see more sunshine laws for open meetings and records than reporter shield laws. I see no national security interest in the deliberations of a commodity commission and its associated lobbying arm, yet I have been locked out of their meetings. We are not the only beneficiaries of these laws - the general public and constituents of the public bodies we cover, are as well. And that point should be made when pressing for more sunshine.

I'm always intrigued by journalists who disagree with the need for a federal shield.

So what if it's something only relatively few of us will ever need for protection?

I'm also not so sure there are "many options" for journalists wanting to protect their confidential sources from public disclosure. That our colleagues (however few they may be) are being hauled into court in the first place is precisely the problem. A shield could help prevent those showdowns from ever happening.

I completely agree that reporters should be made to cough up their sources only rarely and for very, very good reason -- but we're seeing more and more evidence that "very good reason" varies wildly. Again, a shield would help clarify the circumstances under which a journalist could be compelled to testify.

Why should a journalist trust information that comes from sources unwilling to go public? Hmmm. Watergate. Agent Orange. The Bay of Pigs. Enron. Countless examples of harm foisted upon the public and environment by coporations, governments ...

It indeed would be grossly irresponsible to run wild with whatever comes from secret meetings without vetting the information provided and backgrounding the confidential source (and all of his or her potential motivations for sharing that information in the first place). There are many, many ways to determine the integrity of the source and his or her message. But to think it's not important -- even vital -- for journalists to consult people in confidence about information that informs and genuinely helps the public? Wow. That's surprising to me ...

Completely concur that we need to continue hammering open records and meetings laws -- and am very proud of the work done by SPJ's national Freedom of Information Committee. But even when reams of documents are open to public scrutiny, journalists often need help analyzing them and understanding their significance. Where does that invaluable help often come from? Folks who do not want their identities revealed for what are very often very good reasons.

  Justice Byron White wrote the majority opinion for the Supreme Court in the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes, which held that reporters do not have a federal privilege to keep sources secret. Justice White wrote: "From the beginning of our country the press has operated without constitutional protection for press informants, and the press has flourished. ...The use of confidential sources by the press is not forbidden or restricted; reporters remain free to seek news from any source by means within the law." Amen.

In light of what is going on these days, I have stared long and hard at the Branzburg v. Hayes opinion. I also have consulted various resources examining this case and often refer to an excellent primer published in 2005 by the First Amendment Center.

Sure, Justice White wrote what he did, and the passage about a flourishing press is quoted early and often, but let's not forget a few things about this landmark ruling:

* This was a 5-4 decision. ("A 5-4 ruling is never good law," one of my media law professors preached.) Four justices  argued that the First Amendment should protect journalists from having to testify. Justice Potter Stewart even provided a balancing test to determine when a reporter should be made to reveal confidences to a grand jury. He wrote:

“I would hold that the government must (1) show that there is probable cause to believe that the newsman has information that is clearly relevant to a specific probable violation of law; (2) demonstrate that the information sought cannot be obtained by alternative means less destructive of First Amendment rights; and (3) demonstrate a compelling and overriding interest in the information.”

* Even justices writing for the majority (White and Powell) included a qualification in the ruling. The majority opinon states:

"News gathering is not without its First Amendment protections, and grand jury investigations if instituted or conducted other than in good faith, would pose wholly different issues for resolution under the First Amendment. Official harassment of the press undertaken not for purposes of law enforcement but to disrupt a reporter's relationship with his news sources would have no justification.”

As noted in the First Amendment Center's primer on the case, Justice Powell took it even further. His concurring opinion often has been referred to as a concurrence that reads more like a dissent. He wrote:

"As indicated in the concluding portion of the opinion, the Court states that no harassment of newsmen will be tolerated. If a newsman believes that the grand jury investigation is not being conducted in good faith he is not without remedy. Indeed, if the newsman is called upon to give information bearing only a remote and tenuous relationship to the subject of the investigation, or if he has some other reason to believe that his testimony implicates confidential source relationships without a legitimate need of law enforcement, he will have access to the court on a motion to quash and an appropriate protective order may be entered. The asserted claim to privilege should be judged on its facts by the striking of a proper balance between freedom of the press and the obligation of all citizens to give relevant testimony with respect to criminal conduct. The balance of these vital constitutional and societal interests on a case-by-case basis accords with the tried and traditional way of adjudicating such questions.”

* While this ruling might, on its face, appear to grant no federal privilege to journalists, most of the nation's circuit courts have recognized a qualified privilege. No, the circuits haven't agreed on the extent of that qualification, but that's all the more reason for some sort of uniformity as far as I'm concerned. Gracious! The courts are all over the map on this one. Look no further than the loooong list of conflicting opinions that have spewed out of the federal courts over the years. Someone should settle this issue if for no other reason than to achieve a larger degree of consistency and fairness for all journalists in America.

* Journalists are protected in 49 states. Hmmm. Why is it that all but one state in the union (Wyoming is the only unenlightened one) understand that to promote a free press -- a cornerstone of democracy -- journalists must have special legal protection?

I've never been comfortable with shield laws (and that's after more than 30 years of studying the topic), though it's much harder to argue against them these days than it was a decade or more ago.  But I've seen too many situations where the courts have twisted the language of state shield laws to require journalists to violate their pledge of confidentiality.  The last time I checked carefully (10 years or so ago), more reporters had been jailed for refusal to testify in states with shield laws than in states without them.  And as was noted above, a national security exemption is likely to be used to compel testimony in many more instances than it should . . . which could well weaken public support for any journalist who refuses to testify after federal shield protection is denied (as I trust will be the practice).  Bottom line:  if we get the federal shield law, don't expect it to be a panacea, and it's most certainly not going to settle this issue in any definitive way without a lot more court cases to interpret what it means.  (And, by the way, there are shield laws in only 32 states, at my last count. . . the protection in the other 17 states is under common law, and that's never been worth a great deal when push has come to shove.)