Journalists and public support use of confidential sources, new survey shows
From the Spring 2005 issue of The News Media & The Law, page 22.
Although they use confidential sources sparingly, an overwhelming majority of journalists believe that they should be able keep those sources confidential, according to a recent online survey conducted by the First Amendment Center, Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Radio and Television News Directors Association. An earlier First Amendment Center survey indicated that the general public also favors reporters’ ability to protect confidential sources, although not as strongly.
The nonscientific online survey of journalists, conducted between Dec. 3 and 19, elicited responses from 711 IRE and RTNDA members from 47 states and Washington, D.C., who received e-mails asking them to visit a Web site and complete the survey.
The majority of the respondents worked for newspapers, but magazine, radio, television and online journalists also were represented.
Ninety-eight percent of those surveyed said they agreed that journalists should be allowed to keep a news source confidential, with 90 percent of the respondents saying they “strongly agreed”, according to the survey results released March 17.
Results were similar when respondents were asked if a journalist should refuse to disclose a confidential source even when ordered to do so by a court. Ninety-five percent said they should still not disclose, with 85 percent strongly agreeing. More than 80 percent said they would go to jail for up to 18 months rather than reveal a confidential source. More than 95 percent favored Congress passing a reporter’s shield law.
A majority of respondents — more than 85 percent — also felt that confidential sources are essential to their ability to report some stories. However, despite this strong belief that sources’ confidentiality is essential to news reporting and must be protected, the survey indicated that use of confidential sources is comparatively rare. More than 80 percent said they used confidential sources in 20 percent or fewer of their stories, and 10 percent said they never used them.
The findings reflect to some degree an October scientific telephone survey of 699 randomly selected respondents nationwide in which 72 percent agreed that journalists should be allowed to keep a news source confidential. More than 85 percent, however, felt that one should question the accuracy of news stories that rely on confidential sources and more than half thought that news stories that relied on confidential stories should not be published in the first place.
The margin of error on the October survey was 3.7 percent. A margin of error is not available for the journalists’ survey because it was nonscientific.
The survey results are available on the First Amendment Center Web site, www.firstamendmentcenter.org. — GP