Journalists' Rights Tracker

The Free Press [of Mankato, Minn.,] ... rejected [a prosecutor's request for a reporter's notebooks], citing the Minnesota Shield Law and its intent to protect journalists from just such overreaching prosecutors.

That argument was strongly rebuffed by [District Court] Judge [Norbert P.] Smith. He said the shield law didn't apply in this case because Minnesota lawmakers had amended it eight years ago to broaden the types of cases in which the courts could require journalists to disclose information and sources.

Previously, the judge said, the law "required that the information be clearly relevant to a specific violation of the law. If that were still the language of the statute, then the argument of the Free Press would have greater weight."

But the change, he said, required journalists to testify against their will whenever there was probable cause to believe the unpublished information or anonymous sources were clearly relevant to a criminal investigation.

In other words, Judge Smith's ruled that prosecutors in Minnesota are allowed to go on a fishing expedition with the press, a practice shield laws are specifically suppose to prevent.

In this instance, the judge let the unsupported argument of the prosecutors and his obvious dislike for aggressive news reporting skew his logic. His written opinion suggested the reporter and his newspaper undermined the efforts of police negotiators by inadvertently connecting with the gunman, and may even have contributed to his suicide.

Judge Smith offered no evidence to support those outrageous accusations, except for a state investigator's statement... .

"Freedom of the press is not quite as sacrosanct or absolute as The Free Press said the judge. would like it to be,""The right claimed by The Free Press to seek the ‘truth' must never be allowed to take precedent over the compelling and overriding interest of law enforcement authority to maintain human life."

This conclusion by a state judge in Minnesota is unjustified, among other reasons because it infers the police are always right and that the press has a limited role in trying to independently inform the public about criminal activity without fear of being hauled into court.

Judge Smith's opinion shows little respect for journalists as the people's surrogate in our form of democracy. Thus the Mankato Free Press and its corporate parent, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., intend to fight his finding to the hilt.