Page Twp
THE NEW BERN MIRROR, NEW BERN, N. C.
Friday, March 2, 1973
The Senate Subcommittee on
Constitutional Rights, of which I
am Chairman, opened hearings
last week to consider the
question of whether govern
ment should be permitted to
compel the press to reveal the
identity of confidential news
sources or the content of un
published information.
The subcommittee held
hearings in late 1971 and early
1972 on “freedom of the press,
and at that time heard a con
siderable amount of testimony
on the subject. The first
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reported case of a newsman
.refusing to reveal the source of
a news story to a grand jury was
in 1874. There have been
sporadic instances ever since.
Until now, however, the
situation has been one of an
informai accommodation
between newsmen and pro-
secutors. The newsman has
been willing to recognize the
harm to confidential sources in
thobe cases where the reporter
balked.
Despite the frequency of these
clashes, no case involving this
matter had ever come to the
Supreme Court until last June,
when in a controversial 5-4
decision the Court ruled that ttie
First Amendment’s guarantee
of a free press forbade a
newsman to rWuse to reveal his
confidential source to a grand
jury. In a concurring opinion.
Justice Powell indicated that
the Court may not in the future
turn deaf ears upon newsmen if
the government can be shown to
have harassed the newsmen, or
has otherwise not acted in good
faith in the conduct of its in
vestigation or inquiry. For now,
however, the Court has 1^ it to
the Congress to determine the
desirability and the necessity
for statutory protection for
newsmen. This is precisely the
point of the subcommittee’s
present deliberations.
What has happened since the
Supreme Court’s decision has
not allayed newsmen’s concern.
There is the spectacle of several
reporters being sent to jail for
their refusal to identify con
fidential sources or to make
available unpublished
materials.. The legislative
problem is to decide whether or
not to adopt some for of
statutory protection and, if so,
what form that protection
should take. In deciding this, a
number of delicate issues must
be resolved.
Frankly, it would have been
far better if the Supreme Court
had properly faced up to the
controversy last June. To write
legislation balancing the two
great public interests of a free
press and the seeking of justice
is no easy task. This is a
problem better approached
through case-by-case litigation
rather than through inflexible
statutory words.
At the outset, it should be
recognized that there com
peting interests involved. On
the one hand is society’s in
terest in bdng informed—in
learning of crime, corruption or
mismangement. On the other
and, we must ^sue truth in the
courtroom. Citizens have the
duty to give testimony, and the
Sixth Amendment specifically
gives a criminal defendant the
right to confront witnesses
against him. Society, too, has a
marked interest in identifying
and punishing law violators.
The public worries that
“testimonial privilege’’ will
become a shield behind which
It’s impossible for a woman
to be married to the same man
for 50 years. After the first 25,
he is not the same man...The
trouble with being a good sport
is you have to lose in order to
prove it.
The priest who passes the
potato chips in a monastery is
known as the chipmunk....Don’t
envy your neighbor whose grass
is keener, his water bill is
hi^er too.
The worst thing about time
wasters is that so much of the
time they waste doesn’t belong
irresponsible journalists may
hide.
Some in the press, too, have
doubts about the widrom of such
Isolation. They feel that, after
all, the First Amendment is an
unquivocal guarantee of a free
press which should not be'
tampered with. L^islation will
unavoidably have the effect of
limiting that guarantee, and
legislative protection today
may lead to legislative
r^idation in the future. It
should be recognized that the
great rights enjoyed by the
press were not conferred as a
gift of Congress. They were
wrested from a reluctant, and
more accurately, an an
tagonistic government.
All this is but to say that the
subcommittee will be carefully
weiring the opinions of many
spokesmen from the press, the
broadcast media, the legislative
branch, and the public in an
effort to draft sensible
legislation to resolve a problem
for which there is no easy
solution.
to them....The penalty for
getting the woman you want is
that you must keep her.
Confessions may be good for
the soul, but thw are bad for the
reputation... .Char m is the
ability to make someone else
think that both of you are quite
wonderful.
The last word of an argument
Is what a wife has. Anj^lng a
husband says after that Is the
beginning of another
argument....If athletes get
athlete’s feet, do astronauts get
mlstelotoe?
One of the biggest troubles
with success Is that Its recipe Is
often the same as that for a
nervous breakdown... Don’t
worry about avoiding temp
tation, as you grow older It wul
avoid you.
Socrates was a Greek
philosopher who went around
giving good advice. They
poisoned him The reason
worry kills more people than
work is that more people worry
than work.
What’s so remarkable about
love at first sight? It’s when
people have bMn looking at
each other for years that it
becomes remarkable....It’s all
ri^t to drink like a fish, if you
drink what a fish does.
You cannot meet trouble
halfway. It travels faster than
you can To read some
magazines makes one wonder
what the editor has rejec
ted....A race track is the only
place to find windows that clean
people.
If you want a place in the sun,
you must expect some
blisters....If ignorance is bliss,
why aren’t there more happy
people?....An alarm clock is a
mechanism used to scare the
dajdight into you.
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