BOUCHER RECEIVES AWARD FOR WORK ON FEDERAL MEDIA SHIELD LEGISLATION

            (Washington, DC)- The Sunshine in Government Initiative has awarded Representative Rick Boucher its Sunshine In Government Award for his work in promoting open government. The Sunshine in Government Initiative is a group of media organizations committed to promoting policies that ensure that government is accessible, accountable and open.

            Boucher received the award, along with his colleague Representative Mike Pence, for their work to establish a federal media shield law. Boucher and Pence authored the Free Flow of Information Act, which would protect reporters from being compelled to reveal their confidential sources in federal court proceedings. The measure was approved by an overwhelming vote of 398-21 in the House of Representatives.

"The assurance of confidentiality that reporters give to sources is fundamental to their ability to deliver news on highly contentious matters of broad public interest such as corruption in government or misdeeds in corporations.  Without the promise of confidentiality, many inside sources would not reveal the information, and opportunity to take corrective action to address the harms would not arise," Boucher said.

Thirty -four states and the District of Columbia have statutes extending an absolute or qualified privilege protecting reporters from the compelled disclosure of the identity of confidential sources.  "Such overwhelming support for assuring the confidentiality of journalists' sources at the state level lays bare the glaring lack of similar protections at the federal level," Boucher added. 

During the past few years, more than thirty reporters have been subpoenaed or questioned in federal court proceedings about confidential sources, and several have been incarcerated or threatened with jail sentences. "Such actions inevitably have a chilling effect on the willingness of reporters to rely on confidential sources and on the willingness of sources to speak to reporters," Boucher added.

To ensure that confidential sources remain willing to share information vital to the public interest, the bi- partisan legislation approved by the House sets criteria which must be met before information can be subpoenaed from reporters in any federal criminal or civil matter. The standards set forth in the legislation carefully balance the public interest in the free flow of information against the public interest in compelled testimony.

"Our legislation appropriately places the public's right to know above the more narrow interest of the administration of justice in a particular federal case.  In fact, in many instances, the critical information which first alerts federal prosecutors to conduct a criminal proceeding is contained in a news story which could only have been reported upon with the assurance of anonymity to the news source.  The enactment of this measure will assure a stronger underpinning of both freedom of the press and free speech in future years," Boucher concluded.