Commentary: Massachusetts needs a journalist shield law

When a government whistleblower risks a career to expose corruption to a journalist, the first question is always the same: Will my name be kept out of it?

The same is true when a hospital employee reveals a cover-up, when a church insider exposes abuse, or when a corporate source provides evidence that a company has concealed the dangers of its products.

In 41 states and the District of Columbia, a journalist can answer that question with the weight of law behind the promise. In Massachusetts, a journalist cannot.

That is unacceptable for a commonwealth that calls itself the cradle of American liberty and a birthplace of the free press.

And it is also dangerous, especially now, at a moment when journalists face escalating hostility, when federal officials openly threaten and demean the press, and when the legal protections that make independent journalism possible are under assault from multiple directions.

Two bills pending on Beacon Hill would remedy that. House Bill 4638 and Senate Bill 1253, both titled “An Act Relative to the Free Flow of Information,” would establish a statutory reporter’s privilege in Massachusetts, protecting journalists from being compelled to disclose confidential sources or unpublished information except in narrowly defined circumstances involving national security, imminent violence or a defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

Last fall, both the House and Senate members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary gave these bills a favorable report — marking the first time a shield law bill has ever cleared committee in Massachusetts. Since then, however, the bills have languished. Now, their fate is down to the wire.

The clock is ticking. The formal legislative session ends July 31. If both chambers do not bring these bills to a floor vote by then, the legislation dies, and the entire effort has to start over in the next session.

We urge House Speaker Ronald Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, and the leadership of both chambers to ensure that a shield law goes to a vote before time runs out.

The need is more urgent than ever. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case of Catherine Herridge, a veteran investigative reporter facing daily fines of $800 for refusing to reveal a confidential source. Herridge’s case arose in federal court, where no shield law applies.

But Massachusetts journalists face a similar vulnerability in state court, where judges apply a discretionary balancing test that has produced inconsistent and unjust outcomes. In the Ayash v. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute case, a reporter and his newspaper were held in contempt for refusing to identify a confidential source — even though the underlying claims were ultimately dismissed.

In Commonwealth v. Karen Read, the trial court reversed its own ruling on a reporter’s claim of privilege, underscoring the current standard’s unpredictability.

This legal uncertainty has real-world consequences.

Sources with information the public should know — about government misconduct, about institutional abuse, about threats to public health and safety — are reluctant to come forward.

Reporters at small and local newspapers, the very outlets that cover city halls and school committees and police departments, face the prospect of costly court battles they cannot afford every time a subpoena lands on an editor’s desk.

A statutory shield law would replace that uncertainty with clearly defined protections, replacing individual judges’ unguided discretion with an unambiguous legal standard on which everyone could rely. The commonwealth’s outlier status grows more conspicuous each year.

In March 2025, Idaho became the latest state to enact a shield law, with its Republican-led legislature approving the law unanimously. There is no reason for Massachusetts not to follow suit.

This legislation carries no fiscal cost. It has no formal opposition. It has the support of every major news and press organization in the state, as well as of the ACLU of Massachusetts and Common Cause. What it needs now is a vote. The people of Massachusetts deserve the same protections for a free and vigorous press that citizens in the vast majority of states already enjoy. The Legislature has just weeks to act. It should not let this historic opportunity slip away.

Robert J. Ambrogi is the executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association.