FOXNews.com: 1st AMENDMENT TEST: Fox News Reporter in Court Over Aurora Story Source

FOXNews.com FOX News Channel - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

1st AMENDMENT TEST: Fox News Reporter in Court Over Aurora Story Source Apr 1st 2013, 16:38 FoxNews.com reporter Jana Winter broke the exclusive story about a notebook Aurora shooter James Holmes mailed to his psychiatrist. The FoxNews.com reporter who broke the exclusive story about a notebook that Colorado shooter James Holmes sent to his psychiatrist is in a courtroom this morning, facing contempt and possible jail time in a case experts say has chilling ramifications for the First Amendment. Jana Winter is set to appear before Arapahoe County District Judge William Sylvester, who called her in response to a Holmes' defense team request that she reveal the sources of her story. Attorneys for Fox News objected to the Winter subpoena. They declined to comment on the case in advance of the hearing. The case is being monitored by First Amendment watchdogs and journalism advocates, who said Sylvester is sending an ominous message to the media – as well as the public – in asking Winter to reveal her sources. "This is the classic reason to have shield laws." - Gene Policinski, the First Amendment Center "This is the classic reason to have shield laws," said Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, based in Washington, D.C. "There must be protection for journalists to be free to report what they know, because that is how the public takes measure independently of how the courts operate." Sylvester issued a gag order to law enforcement authorities in the days following the July 20 attack, in which Holmes allegedly killed 12 and injured 70. Holmes' attorneys claim Winter's story, published on July 25 and picked up by media outlets around the world, has jeopardized his right to a fair trial. On Monday, prior to Winter's appearance, prosecutors announced that they will seek the death penalty in the case. Winter's story cited unnamed law enforcement sources in describing the contents of the notebook Holmes sent to Dr. Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist who saw Holmes while he was a neuroscience graduate student at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus. Sylvester allowed Holmes' lawyers to launch an investigation after the story ran in an attempt to uncover Winter's sources, but none of the more than a dozen law enforcement officials who were called to testify admitted talking directly to the media. They were not asked to say if they had discussed the notebook with others. Requiring the testimony of a reporter to learn who violated a gag order is rare – and almost never warranted - argued Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Arlington, Va.,-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "In a case like this, you initially understand the judge's interest in finding out who violated an order, but you don't do that by making a journalist violate their promises of confidentiality," said Leslie, who said concerns that leaks violate a defendant's right to a fair trial are often "overblown, or fade quickly." Reporters have a tradition of protecting sources, even under the threat of jail. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Judy Miller, currently a Fox News contributor but at the time with The New York Times, spent 85 days in jail in 2005 after refusing to appear before a federal grand jury investigating a leak in which Valerie Plame was outed as an undercover CIA operative. Former San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, who wrote the 2006 book "Game of Shadows," about Major League Baseball's steroid scandal, were threatened with jail time by federal prosecutors when they refused to reveal how they obtained leaked grand jury testimony. The federal government eventually dropped the case against them. Williams, now a senior reporter for the California-based Center for Investigative Reporting, told FoxNews.com dealing with confidential sources is an important part of the job. "If a judge can just drag you into court and make you give up the person who gave you information anytime he feels like it, we're not going to get help from people who have important information," Williams said. "Ultimately, the community suffers."

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions