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No Shield Law
"Unfortunately, the Shield Law is a two-way door that swung and hit me right across the backside."
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By Anyi Howell
The journalism community is up in arms about "Shield Law" protection. Even as someone working in journalism, I am completely against shield law protection for commercial media sources.
Unfortunately, the Shield Law is a two-way door that swung and hit me right across the backside. A few months ago I was at A BART train station and was profiled by a police officer, wrongfully accused and accosted at gunpoint for stealing my own vehicle. I won't get into the whole scene, but the entire incident was captured by Fox's KTVU news cameras.
I have never seen or heard of anyone catching police misconduct on professional cameras. My naivete led me to believe that the KTVU tape would shed light on what I view to be an epidemic in this country: police mistreatment of minorities and racial profiling. However, station reps said even though the footage exists, I wouldn't be able to watch or use it, and they won't use it for anything either. They told me shield laws allow them not to release copies of footage to anyone, at their discretion. I was enraged.
Media members contend that the public will suffer if journalists can't keep their sources confidential. No one would give interviews in confidence, making whistle-blowing a lot harder, they say. But commercial media isn't in place to inform the public so much as it is to entertain and increase the value of their air space. That's why violence stories are played at the top of the broadcast or grace the front pages of newspapers. If it bleeds, it leads is the rule of thumb in the news industry.
These aren't the philosophies of a community- conscious establishment. Myself and many of my peers are upset with the news media because they manufacture stereotypical images nightly making young black male becomes synonymous with criminal. But when they have proof of a young black male being mistreated by an authority figure, Like the KTVU footage of me, mums the word. The American community deserves more than that from its news providers.
As someone who is not a Republican, I have found an unlikely ally in my dissatisfaction with news media. The President and I see eye to eye on this issue. Dubya won’t endorse a federal shield law because in his opinion, and I quote, "some information could damage our ability to collect information." That doesn't make too much sense, but if it takes the president getting peeved at the media for me to have my justice, so be it. But don't tell him we both feel this way. He might start pushing for a federal shield law, helping news media continue sweeping the problems that plague his homeland right under the welcome mat.
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