Pulitzer Prize winner among panelists for symposium on reporters' privilege

November 28, 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Law Review will host its annual fall symposium, featuring a panel discussion on “A Reporter’s Privilege,” at 1 p.m. Friday in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. This event is open to the public.

Panelists will include Pulitzer Prize winner Lucy Morgan of the St. Petersburg Times, Tampa media lawyer and author James B. Lake, and Levin College of Law Professor Lyrissa Lidsky. Sandra Chance, former media lawyer at Holland & Knight and now journalism professor and director of the Brechner Center at UF, will moderate the discussion. Panelists will discuss the status of the nature and extent of the reporters’ privilege in the United States, particularly in the face of recent attempts to compel their testimony by use of subpoenas, and other forms of governmental encroachment. They will discuss whether and under what circumstances reporters may refuse to reveal their sources, and examine the case of Judith Miller of The New York Times, who was jailed in July 2005 for contempt of court for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a leak naming Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent.

Morgan was sentenced to jail in 1973 for refusing to reveal a source, but in 1976 the Florida Supreme Court overturned the sentence and granted reporters a limited right to protect sources. In 1985, she and fellow Times staffer Jack Reed shared the Pulitzer for investigative reporting for their work exposing corruption in the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office. A former newspaper reporter, Lake is co-author of “The Reporter’s Privilege in Florida.” Lidsky is co-author of “Freedom of the Press: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution. “