Fundraiser Set as Reporter's Fines Hit $200/Day

By: Mark Fitzgerald Two reporters at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis are raising money to help pay the $200-a-day court fine imposed on a 73-year-old reporter for the weekly Maplewood Review who has refused to reveal his confidential source in a 1997 article about the firing of a high school football coach.

Reporter Wally Wakefield was ordered to begin paying the $200 fine yesterday, April 12, and every day until July 19, when trial begins in the defamation suit brought by fired football coach Richard Weinberger against the North St. Paul Maplewood school district. Fines could total $20,000 by then.

Star Tribune reporters Steve Brandt and Randy Furst are leading a group of reporters in the Society of Professional Journalists' (SPJ) Minneapolis Pro Chapter in establishing the fund.

An account has been opened at the Star Tribune Credit Union. Donations should be made payable to:

The Wally Wakefield Defense Fund
P.O. Box 8115
Minneapolis, MN 55408

In his lawsuit, Weinberger is seeking the name of an unnamed school district official who is quoted as saying the coach was fired because he exposed players to his temper and foul language. Wakefield, who began writing for the paper after retiring as an elementary school teacher, refused to reveal the source. Twice, the state appeals court ruled that Minnesota's shield law protected Wakefield from being forced to name the source. Last September, though, the state Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the shield law did not apply because it concerned a defamation claim.

The fund is being supported by the national SPJ and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, whose executive director, Lucy Dalglish, will be on the executive board of the fund.

SPJ national President Gordon D. "Mac" McKerral said Wakefield was faced with a choice worse than going to jail to protect his sources: "I think many judges realize that journalists are and always have been willing to go to jail to protect the identity of confidential sources who help them report on stories that have widespread public interest and value to the community. So instead, judges hit reporters in the checkbook, a place that unlike jail, many reporters cannot afford to deal with. And where did the court come up with $200 a day? It's arbitrary and usurious. That's not just.
It's vindictive."