| Journalists often take the position that confidential sources should remain anonymous. One tool journalists invoke when pressure is exerted by the government to reveal a source's identity is reporters' privilege, basing this right on the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and the press. Yet the interpretation of exactly what this Amendment promises is much debated.;Studies on reporter's privilege and shield laws usually focus on three arenas: historical developments (Allen, 1992), analysis of legislation and court cases (Fargo, 2006-c; Fargo, 2002; Schmid, 2001) and whether the First Amendment promises privilege at all (Marcus, 1983). Little research, however, looks at reporter's privilege and shield laws through the eyes of practitioners and whether they think the threat of source exposure corrupts the newsperson's ability to inform the public, thus hurting free speech. Similarly, there is little research on how the mainstream news media frame reporter's privilege and shield laws and what the public thinks of them.;The first purpose of this dissertation is to understand journalists' perceptions of the importance of the reporter/anonymous source relationship and whether they think the threat of revealing sources alters the newsgathering process by interviewing journalists who went to jail rather than expose their sources. The second goal is to understand how reporter's privilege and shield laws are portrayed to the public by looking at the frames four major metro newspapers, in different geographical regions, used in their editorial pages when discussing reporter's privilege and shield laws over the span of 38 years, starting in 1972, the year of the pivotal Supreme Court decision in Branzburg v. Hayes1. The findings may provide insight into how the media explain such issues to the public and how the media establishment can better construct their narratives to educate its audience on such concerns.;The last purpose is to suggest how the public may understand the issues of shield laws and reporter's privilege through the media they consume. The findings from focus groups conducted with three demographic groups---students, baby boomers, and seniors---provide insight into how the public may perceive and misinterpret such issues, and how media institutions can better educate the public on shield laws and reporter's privilege.;1 The idea of a federal shield law has been a much-talked about media topic since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), a pivotal case in how the courts look at reporter's privilege where a 5-4 ruling deemed that journalists do not have a First Amendment right to refuse testimony before a grand jury. |
