Media advocates to push shield law again
By KELLEY SHANNON - Associated Press Writer
Saturday, January 10, 2009 11:54 AM CST
AUSTIN - Texas open government and news media advocates say because of past groundwork and changes afoot in the state House of Representatives they are optimistic about passage of a reporter's shield law, called the Free Flow of Information Act.
Proposals to protect journalists from being forced to reveal confidential sources in court or to automatically turn over subpoenaed television videotape to police and prosecutors have failed in previous legislative sessions.
But the measure's passage in the Texas Senate in 2007 and the impending leadership change in the Texas House - outgoing Republican Speaker Tom Craddick is expected to be replaced by moderate Republican Rep. Joe Straus - bode well for the proposal's chances this year, the media advocates said at a legislative preview meeting hosted by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors.
"We stand a very good chance of passing a Free Flow of Information Act this year," said Michael Schneider, programs director for the Texas Association of Broadcasters.
Proponents say the legislation would protect the public because it would encourage whistleblowers to come forward with information that could reveal corruption. Opponents have included district attorneys, who say it could hinder their ability to gather evidence in criminal cases.
Winning approval in the Senate two years ago was a major step forward, said Jeremy Warren, spokesman for Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the shield law bill in 2007 and will press it again this year. Warren said the new House leadership may be more open-minded about the proposal.
"We finally passed it out of the Senate," Warren said. "The changes in the House, that's a real, real question. I tend to believe it's going to be more favorable for our side, that we're going to have the opportunity to get a little further."
Craddick allowed the bill to come up for a vote in 2007, but it was late in the legislative session and a Republican lawmaker shot it down on a technical point.
Schneider said the proposal would provide a qualified legal privilege, or limited immunity, for journalists, allowing them to protect sources, notes and video tape from disclosure in court under certain circumstances. More than 30 states have some form of a shield law.
The Texas Legislature convenes Tuesday for its 140-day biennial session.
Schneider and Ken Whalen, executive vice president for the Texas Daily Newspaper Association, said one of the biggest open government fights this session may be over keeping the dates of birth and work schedules of state employees available to the public. They said many times state employees have the same common name and must be identified with additional information.
Selection of public school superintendents may be debated as open government activists try to provide more access to the identity of the top candidates for the jobs, Whalen said.
Allowing defendants to expunge their criminal case history from court records will be a battle front, the open government panelists said. Legislation passed in recent sessions made it easier for some deferred adjudication defendants to expunge their records.
So news reporters and other members of the public cannot always check records to determine if someone has a criminal background, said Laura Lee Prather, a media attorney with the Austin office of the Sedgwick law firm and vice president of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
"This is a critical issue that is just being swept under the carpet," she said. "Critical information is being hidden.
The panelists said changes to the Texas Public Information Act would best be examined over a two-year period between legislative sessions in which the entire law could be studied and updated to deal with new access issues, such as government offices' retention of e-mail messages. Getting items within the act addressed individually is difficult, Prather said.
"People want to chip away at what's there," she said. "There are a lot of loopholes in the law."
