finding a qualified protection in the First Amendment for the “general right . . . to gather information and prepare it for expression”
How later courts described this case
- finding a qualified protection in the First Amendment for the “general right . . . to gather information and prepare it for expression”
- protective order required “if discovery were sought to ‘chill’ a particular point of view”
- a reporter was ordered to testify at a deposition in a judicial disciplinary action concerning sources of information for a television investigative report on District Court judges
- judge should prevent “use of discovery as a means of harassing a reporter or other potential witness”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Quirico, J.
(with whom Liacos, J., joins, concurring in the result and the reasoning in support thereof, but not in the concluding dictum of the opinion). I concur with the result reached by the court in its opinion and with all of the reasoning in support of that result. In short, I concur with the opinion to the end of the second part thereof entitled “Discovery supervision claim.”
*641 I do not believe that the concluding part of the opinion entitled “Common law considerations” is essential to the decision of this case, and therefore consider it dictum. While I agree with the general statements therein about the continuing development of the common law, I do not join that part of the dictum which appears to be a current commitment to a future recognition of a common law equivalent of a so called press “shield” law. That is a subject on which regulation has been sought from the Legislature without success to date. I believe that judicial action or commitment on the subject should await a decision directly involving an issue thereon.