Washington State AG Pushes for Reporters' Shield Law

By: JOHN K. WILEY, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER (AP) King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng joined state Attorney General Rob McKenna in encouraging newspaper publishers to get behind legislation to protect reporters' confidential sources.

McKenna, a Republican, plans to request legislation next year that would make Washington the 32nd state with some form of reporter's privilege.

On a panel of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association with McKenna on Thursday, Maleng urged publishers at their annual meeting to get behind the shield-law bill.

"My philosophy is, a free society requires a free press," McKenna said.

Shield laws give the media the tools they need to hold public and private agencies accountable, McKenna said.

Almost all of the state's public-corruption investigations over the past 25 years have been driven by media interest, Maleng said.

Washington has no statutory shield law, but its courts have ruled in favor of qualified privilege based on the First Amendment and on common law.

Putting such a shield into state statutes would firm up protections for both the media and confidential sources who provide information, McKenna said.

The so-called "absolute privilege" would eliminate the "chilling effect" that prosecutors' subpoenas have on the media's ability to gather and publish news, he said.

Maleng, a Republican who has been prosecutor of the state's most populous county for 25 years, said he has never had a case where he had to subpoena reporters to solve a case.

Events surrounding the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to disclose the name of Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the Valerie Plame CIA leak "dealt a blow to the principle underlying the shield law," Maleng said.

But the CIA leak story also offers an opportunity, because the public is more aware of free press issues, Maleng said.

"I think it's time to stand up," he told the publishers.

McKenna's bill would broadly define the media as anyone who earn a substantial portion of their income from publishing or broadcasting. Generally, bloggers or authors of occasional opinion pieces would not be covered, he said.

McKenna's office said he is having discussions with several lawmakers to find a sponsor for the bill.

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutory shield laws to protect the media from compelled disclosure, and federal shield legislation is being considered in Congress.

In May, McKenna joined attorneys general across the country in a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a qualified reporter's privilege to refuse to disclose confidential news sources and urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Judith Miller case.