PRESS PROTECTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 May 1940, Page 7

PRESS PROTECTED

LAW RECOGNISES CONFIDENCE. Eight States in America have enacted laws protecting newspaper men who refuse to divulge confidential sources of information, says an article in the “Editor and Publisher,” which quotes the wording of each Act.

The New Jersey statute, which is on the same lines as those in other States, reads in part:

“Privilege as to source of information obtained in connection with newspaper work. No person engaged in. connected with, or employed on an> newspaper shall be compelled to disclose, in any legal proceeding or trial,i before any court, before any grand jury of any country, or any petty jury of any court, before the presiding officer of any tribunal or his agent, or before any committee of the legislature, or elsewhere, the source of any information procured or obtained by him and published in the newspaper on which he is engaged, connected with, or employed." Arkansas brings in the question ol good faith in its law:

“Section 15. Newspaper Privilege. Before any editor, reporter, or other writer for any newspaper or periodical, or publisher of any newspaper or periodical, shall be required to disclose to any grand jury or to any other authority. tne source of the information used as the basis for any article he may have written or published, it must be shown that such article was written and published in bad faith, with malice, and not in the interest of the public welfare." California words its law as follows:— “There are particular relations in which it is the policy of the law to cn- , courage confidence and to preserve it inviolate; therefore a person cannot be examined as a witness in the following cases: — “6. A publisher, editor, reporter, or ether person connected with or employed upon a newspaper cannot be adjudged in contempt by a court, the Legislature, or any administrative body f'oi refusing to disclose the source of any information procured for publication and published in a newspaper.” Pennsylvania extends legal protection also to "any Press association for the purpose of gathering, procuring, compiling, editing, or publishing news.”