[BuckeyeTexan]

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[abb]

Actually, this is good news. Here is the case from 1972 that is pertinent. It says that reporters have to answer subpoenas just like every other citizen.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/408/665 Branzburg v. Hayes

That case also says this:

The administration of a constitutional newsman's privilege [p704] would present practical and conceptual difficulties of a high order. Sooner or later, it would be necessary to define those categories of newsmen who qualified for the privilege, a questionable procedure in light of the traditional doctrine that liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph just as much as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest photocomposition methods.

The efforts now underway to create a federal "shield law" would gut the first amendment. It would be a license to publish