Idaho bill to protect journalists' sources advances. Number of subpoenas has risen
An Idaho House committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would protect journalists from having to identify sources or turn over notes and other unpublished material during legal proceedings.
Idaho is one of 10 states that doesn't have a so-called shield law on the books, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. House Bill 158, which now heads to the floor with a do-pass recommendation, could change that.
'What we have in front of us is a suggested law that would protect sources. Sources, not journalists,' said co-sponsor Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls. 'Idaho's media outlets are facing an increasingly growing number of subpoenas.'
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Branzburg v. Hayes, ruled that requiring journalists to testify to grand juries and reveal confidential information wasn't a First Amendment infringement on freedom of the press, according to Oyez, an archive of cases.
Ben Olson, the co-owner and publisher of the Sandpoint Reader, has personal experience with subpoenas, he told the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee. In 2018, he published an article identifying a man who was distributing racist propaganda. Olson said there were robocalls calling him a cancer, he said, amid a campaign of harassment.
The FCC wanted to fine Scott Rhodes millions of dollars for the malicious robocalls, according to previous Statesman reporting. One of the calls that mentioned Olson was included in the FCC's complaint, and he was then subpoenaed by Rhodes, he said.
'It was an attempt to further harass me and potentially harass the sources that spoke with me,' Olson said. 'We have a staff of three people, myself included, and we don't have the means or the time to fight frivolous subpoenas.'
He was lucky, Olson told the committee Wednesday. A lawyer represented him pro bono and the subpoena was quashed.
Others haven't been so fortunate.
Nate Sunderland, the editor of East Idaho News, said he was forced by subpoena to testify in a defamation case between an attorney and a businessman. The attorney had provided a quote about a criminal case to the outlet, Sunderland said, and the businessman assumed it was about him.
East Idaho News spent almost two years and a lot of money fighting the subpoena, but ultimately lost.
'As journalists, we believe the conversations between sources and reporters are private, until the decision is made to publish on-the-record statements in an article or broadcast,' Sunderland said. 'We need to ensure that our sources and our conversations are inherently private.'
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