Fox News – Sandy Rosenberg

A former Fox News reporter will be testifying for my bill.

An example of the new bipartisan Annapolis?

Not quite.

Jana Winter reported on the mass shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado.

A trial court judge ordered her to reveal the source for her story about a notebook that the gunman sent to his psychiatrist before the shooting.

However, since Winter was based in Manhattan, New York’s highest court ruled that the state’s reporter’s shield law would be violated if Winter was forced to reveal her source.

My bill would adopt that same standard. A Maryland-based reporter could not be subpoenaed to testify in another state if that testimony could not be required under our shield law.

The reporter, a press lawyer, and I will also meet with the committee chair before the hearing.

It’s not bipartisan. It’s not fair and balanced.

It’s personalizing what would otherwise be an abstract protection of the free press.

Perhaps you remember the scene.

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is in a line at a movie and has to listen to an uninformed critic.

Out steps Marshall McLuhan from behind a poster to set things right.

At a Judiciary Committee voting session today, I tried to make the case for my bill that would allow a Maryland court to determine if a journalist could not be subpoenaed by another state because doing so would violate our reporter’s shield law.

The argument made against my bill: that decision should be made by a court in the state that is seeking the journalist’s testimony.

That court is not going to be sympathetic to applying Maryland law, I replied.

The bill lost, 8-13.

I emailed the Washington Post’s deputy general counsel, who had testified for the legislation. He responded that it might not even be a permissible objection to make, since the local rules typically list the grounds on which one can object to a subpoena.

I introduced House Bill 370 after reading about a Fox News reporter based in New York who had been subpoenaed by a Colorado court. The New York Court of Appeals ruled that doing so violated that state’s shield law.

The reporter’s attorney is based in Washington.

Next year, I’ll ask him to testify for the bill.