Lowell Bergman Quotes
What has been adjudicated and established in the wake of Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement is the ability of the press to basically write or broadcast almost anything about the government. There's very few restrictions in that way.
Bergman, Lowell. "Frontline: News War." The Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2007.
Note how the second paragraph nullifies the first of the government declares an emergency. This is a trick that is very common in constitutions.
There has been a constant conflict between the government and the press regarding the right of a journalist to refuse to disclose his/her sources for a story or to reveal his/her notes or outtakes. Reporters would sometimes be subpoenaed and if they refused to testify or disclose the subpoenaed information, they could be held in contempt of court and fined, jailed or both. However, one of the major reasons reporters have been able to get information on the malfeasance and incompetence of government is that leakers and whistleblowers have been willing to provide information to the press is that they are confident that the press will not disclose the source. The courts have ruled that journalists have no special rights regarding subpoenas, so the outcome of the conflict depends on the political decision of the administration. For the 2nd Obama administration, this has his announcement that the Justice Department would not jail reporters who ignored subpoenas. However many proponents of a free press, do not want to depend on the decision of the Attorney General in office and want Congress to pass a Shield Law for journalists.
Lowell Bergman is the Emeritus Reva and David Logan Distinguished Chair in Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and founder of the Investigative Reporting Program, where he taught lecture classes and then seminars dedicated to investigative reporting for 28 years. He was also a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline. Bergman’s career spans nearly five decades, most notably as a producer, a reporter and then the director of investigative reporting at ABC News and as a producer for CBS's 60 Minutes leaving in 1998 as the senior producer of investigations for CBS News. In 2019, Bergman retired after a 50-year career in journalism.
