Media shield bill appears unlikely to pass Mo. Legislature

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- A bill limiting when media members could be compelled to testify about their sources appears unlikely to pass the Missouri Legislature this year.

Sens. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, and Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, each filed proposals they said would help ensure the free flow of information.

The Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard the bills in February. But the committee's chairman, Sen. Matt Bartle, said the bills are unlikely to be sent to the Senate floor this year.

"My sense is that there were some serious questions about how it would function," Bartle, R-Lee's Summit, told the Columbia Daily Tribune for a story Wednesday.

Under the bills, a court could force a reporter to testify only if attorneys seeking the testimony had exhausted all other options for obtaining the information and the disclosure was essential to the protection of the public.

The issue of compelling reporters to testify has gained interest since former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for 85 days after refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a leak of a CIA operative's name. More than half the states have some type of reporter's privilege.

Sen. Chris Koster, a former Cass County prosecutor, said the bill would have ranked the search for truth in a newspaper higher than the search for truth in a court.

Graham, who said he planned to file the bill again next year, told the Tribune he would work with Koster, R-Harrisonville, to try to allay his concerns.

The Missouri Press Association has lobbied for the protection, and Executive Director Doug Crews said the group would continue to push for its passage.

Crews said the bill was not a uniform ban on compelling reporters from testifying, just a protection that reporters don't become investigators.

What "the issue boils down to is that the media shouldn't be an arm of law enforcement," he said.