Shield law bill’s future looks bleak in Senate
OLYMPIA – A bill to protect reporters from having to choose between jail and revealing confidential sources appears doomed in the state Senate, Majority Leader Lisa Brown said Thursday.
“Unless the proponents and opponents get a little more consensus, it’s doubtful that we’ll bring it up for a vote,” Brown said.
Many newspapers and broadcasters backed the bill. Opponents included trial lawyers, two construction trade associations and a Texas-based company that was the subject of an investigative TV report two years ago.
The bill, HB 2452, would have granted journalists an absolute privilege to keep secret even from a judge the names or identifying information about a confidential source. It also included lesser protections – which could be overruled by a judge – protecting reporters’ notes, unaired video, tape recordings and other work from disclosure.
Brown said some opponents thought the bill went too far, shielding people who wouldn’t fall under the traditional definition of a reporter. Others, she said, thought it was too weak and didn’t protect notes and tapes enough.
The bill got extra steam this year because of the jailing of a New York Times reporter who refused to reveal a source and a Times investigation – using confidential sources – that revealed that the federal government was secretly listening in on some Americans’ phone calls. HB 2452 passed the state House of Representatives last month on a bipartisan 87-11 vote.
“The Senate dropped the ball on this,” a disappointed Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, said Thursday night. “This is a damned good bill. The press are citizens’ eyes and ears.”
With the threat of two dozen amendments by Democratic and Republican critics, Brown said, she couldn’t afford to waste precious time on an uncertain effort to pass the bill. A key legislative deadline hits at 5 p.m. today. Despite proponents’ claims, she said, she’s not sure there were enough yes votes.
Kline said the bill is worth taking the time for.
“We have to make room for more important bills, like the Walla Walla onion bill,” he said, citing a measure to declare an official state vegetable. “Like the bill to allow retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed weapons. Important measures like that take precedence.”
Attorney General Rob McKenna, who had called for the law, said that allowing courts to force reporters to reveal confidential sources chills “the free flow of information that is so vital to a democratic society.”
“This bill isn’t a charitable donation to the press,” said Sen. Stephen Johnson, R-Kent. “It’s a contribution to an open society.’
Critics argued that state common law already grants a qualified privilege for reporters to keep sources secret, although a court can overrule that. By granting protection to reporters’ notes and other work, Sen. Brian Weinstein, D-Mercer Island, said, criminals could hide documents from court scrutiny.
“You basically could launder some evidence,” Weinstein said. “Just give it to a reporter and that’s it.”
He was also unhappy with the proposed definition of journalist, which would have included film production companies, academics, or “any person … in the regular business of disseminating news or information to the public by any means.”
Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, said that lawmakers have to balance the rights of a free press against the rights of people to defend themselves in court.
“Everyone looks at this and says ‘Why are we doing this?’ ” he said, citing the existing case law protection for journalists. One of the unexpected critics of the bill was USAA, a financial services company based in San Antonia, Texas. The company hired top-tier lobbyist Cliff Webster, of Carney Badley Spellman, the highest-grossing lobbying firm in Olympia. Two years ago, USAA sued a local TV station following a news report about USAA, shortly after its first-ever layoffs, subsequently hiring foreign contractors to do computer work. The story was based partly on confidential sources. The company, according to a report in the San Antonio Business Journal, said that the TV reporter obtained “confidential and proprietary” information from USAA.