FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Brant Houston, Executive Director, 573-882-2042, brant@ire.org
Sept. 26, 2006
IRE protests jail sentences for Chronicle’s BALCO reporters
COLUMBIA , Mo. — Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., the top international group of investigative journalists, strongly protests the jail sentences imposed on two San Francisco Chronicle reporters for refusing to reveal the source of secret grand jury testimony from the BALCO case.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White on Thursday ordered the two journalists jailed on contempt charges for up to 18 months, but he stayed the sentence pending the outcome of the journalists' appeal.
The Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams were subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury regarding court documents used as the basis for articles that linked well-known athletes to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The subpoenas called for the reporters to provide any grand jury transcripts in their possession and the original packaging in which they received transcripts.
In sentencing the reporters, Judge White recognized that the case presented "a very difficult area of the law" and "a conflict between the First Amendment and the Grand Jury's right to conduct its investigation." However, he relied upon a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision to support a ruling that the Chronicle's reporters "had no right not to testify" about their confidential sources. Prosecutors asked the judge to send the reporters to prison for up to 18 months - the maximum allowed by federal law - or until they agreed to testify.
"The ability to protect confidential sources is the foundation for all
investigative journalism, said James Grimaldi, president of the IRE Board of Directors. " Cases like this one - and many other troubling episodes in recent months- has prompted IRE to back the federal shield law that would curb prosecutors from subpoenaing journalists' notes, phone bills and related records."
Fainaru-Wada and Williams said they plan to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit Court recently ruled against freelance journalist Josh Wolf, who refused to hand over a videotape in a separate, criminal investigation. Wolf was ordered to prison this week.
Eve Burton, general counsel of the Chronicle's owner, the Hearst Corp., said outside court following the hearing that the proposed federal "shield law" would allow judges to use a balancing test to weigh whether the public good served by a story should be considered when asking a journalist to testify in court.
On May 31, the Chronicle filed a motion to quash the subpoenas — an action which IRE applauded.
"We fully and enthusiastically support the newspaper and its reporters in their efforts to fight the subpoenas," former IRE President David Boardman, managing editor of The Seattle Times., said at the time. "Their stories were great public-service journalism on an important American cultural institution. These subpoenas are unnecessary and can only discourage responsible newspapers from doing their jobs."
IRE also has expressed deep concern about the growing number of federal subpoenas and inquiries involving reporters.
Earlier this year , IRE condemned the FBI's attempt to obtain the files of the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson. The IRE Board of Directors called on the FBI to cease its efforts, and expressed support for the Anderson family's decision not to cooperate. Anderson's files span more than 50 years of reporting in Washington, D.C., by the venerated muckraker and his colleagues.
IRE, with more than 4,500 members, is a grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting in the United States and elsewhere. It was formed in 1975 to create a forum in which journalists could help each other by sharing story ideas, newsgathering techniques and news sources.
