ANONYMITY OF NEWSPARER CORRESPONDENT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 654, 30 October 1874, Page 3

ANONYMITY OF NEWSPARER CORRESPONDENT.

The Melbourne Age thus refers to an important journalistic issue in the recent Herald libel case :“ A gentleman who stated that he was tho responsible editor oi the Herald was compelled by the judge to give up the name of the writer of a letter which reflected on the management of the Theatre Royal, and was alleged to be libellous. The editor at first refused to answer the question, but the judge ruled that he had no option but to disclose the writer. Such a decision is so utterly in violation of all newspaper etiquette that the public will feel naturally anxious to know whether or not it is really the law. The Herald had taken the responsibility of its correspondent s statements, and was at that very time defending their correctness in the court. What right had any one to invade the anonymity of the correspondents? The dictum of Sir Redmond Barry is the more embarrassing inasmuch as it is opposed to the action of Mr Justice Stephen in the recent trial of Walker versus Australasian. In that case Mr Hammersley, the sporting editor, declined to give up the name of the writer of a letter which was the groundwork of the libel; and the learned judge, although both he a d Mr Ireland seemed to doubt whether there was any privilege in a communication to a newspaper, forebore insisting on the question being answered, and the authorship of the letter ‘ Justice,’ is still a secret. The relation between writers of letters to newspapers and the gentlemen to whom they confide their missives are so important that we should be glad to have some more authorative decision than was afforded by either of the learned judges who have within the last few days pronounced opinions on the subject. It certainly appears to us that when, as was the case both with the Australasian and the Herald, the newspaper is prepared to take up the cudgels on behalf of its correspondents both in purse and person for his statements, no one should have the right of enquiring as to the sources from which the newspaper obtains its information.”