Wis. governor signs law protecting reporters, sources
By The Associated Press
05.19.10
MADISON, Wis. — Gov. Jim Doyle yesterday signed into law a bill designed to protect reporters and their anonymous sources.
Wisconsin joins 36 other states and the District of Columbia in enacting a so-called shield law that keeps journalists in most cases from having to testify to reveal their confidential sources.
Supporters representing news-media and freedom-of-information groups have said the measure is intended to protect the public's right to learn of official misdoing.
Under the new law, judges could order reporters to testify, produce information or reveal a source's identity only when it is "highly relevant" to the case or critical to at least one party's argument. Attorneys would have to show they couldn't get the information any other way and there was an overriding public interest in disclosing it.
Confidential sources also could not be forced to testify in order to discover the identity of that person.
The Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council collaborated on drafting the law.
There is no federal protection, but 36 other states already have enacted shield laws — most recently Kansas, which enacted its in April. Wisconsin's law takes effect in three months.
Backers of the Wisconsin law argued it was needed to bolster current protections that exist only through court rulings.
The law was based on a 1995 state appeals court ruling that said journalists have more protection than other witnesses from being forced to testify or provide information.
The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by patients of a Milwaukee dentist accused of malpractice. A circuit court judge had ordered journalists who worked on a Milwaukee Magazine story about the dentist to testify and turn over notes and research materials.
The state appeals court said the law gives journalists protection from such orders so that they can't be used "as investigative tools."
