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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Judy Miller, 305-376-3550

Feb. 4, 2000
Legal Fight

IRE has sent the following letter to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor of Ohio on behalf of IRE member and author James Neff.

William D. Mason, Esq.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor
Justice Center
1200 Ontario St.
Cleveland, OH 44113

Dear Mr. Mason:
We write on behalf of Investigative Reporters and Editors ("IRE"), a 4,300-member organization of journalists, to protest the overbroad, unconstitutional and otherwise illegal efforts of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office to subpoena confidential materials gathered by award winning reporter James Neff.

Well-established federal and state law -- including the recent Second Circuit decision in Gonzalez v. Pierce -- provides that journalists shall operate free of state interference with their newsgathering activities. Other than in exceptional circumstances not applicable here, confidential and non-confidential research materials gathered by journalists are not subject to the type of intrusive discovery sought by the State of Ohio from Mr. Neff. In fact, "fishing expeditions" of the sort at issue here are strongly disfavored and cast a shadow across the actions of public officials entrusted to uphold, rather than circumvent, the law.

IRE believes that the decision of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office to pursue unnecessarily Mr. Neff's notebooks and files violates the reporters' privilege doctrine and chills the First Amendment rights of all journalists and citizens. Absent a compelling need for otherwise unobtainable information without any possible alternative sources, the ongoing efforts by Ohio in this matter frustrate the public's right to effective newsgathering by a free press.

Accordingly, IRE urges that the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Office abandon its efforts to compel production of Mr. Neff's protected and privileged journalistic work product. We believe the law requires you to do so, and public confidence in the conduct of state officials demands it.
Sincerely,

The IRE Board of Directors
Judy Miller, President