ABSTRACT
While the media’s ideal is to have source protection deeply entrenched as an inviolable right, that right can, and often does, collide with other competing interests. This collision is the natural consequence of recognising that protection for journalists’ sources cannot be absolute, as discussed in earlier chapters. This chapter begins by restating key arguments in favour of protection for journalists’ confidential sources, discusses the breadth of affirmations of the ideal of source protection, and recounts the pressures undermining the ideal. The affirmations are from legislators, the courts, and others who are further removed from the journalistic profession itself. This is done to highlight the fact that source protection is not solely a media concern. The chapter then considers the following “balancing” issues: scenarios that lend themselves to clear-cut and not so clear-cut determinations when weighing up the strength of source protection claims; the role of journalism ethics codes in the source protection claim balancing exercise; the challenges for the balancing exercise in the era of the “fake news” phenomenon, which has undermined trust in the media; the balancing of competing public interests against a backdrop of potential misapprehensions as to the meaning of “the public interest”; the role of shield law when balancing competing interests; and balancing reliance on anonymous sources with concerns about manipulation by such sources. It concludes that in seeking strong source protection, the media must demonstrate an appreciation of the various competing interests and be prepared to respond holistically.
