We need reporters and editors to adopt their own system and enforce it, as doctors and lawyers do. It is time for journalists to blow the whistle on each other. It wasn't long ago that doctors and lawyers refused to testify against each other in lawsuits. Now they not only do that, they also submit to peer review through boards of professional responsibility to protect the public from malpractice. The judiciary's practices and protections are based entirely upon the rights of individuals to be properly and well represented when they become involved in the judicial process.
Lawyers rely upon the power of the judicial system to control access to the privileges of lawyers.
A citizen's reliance upon a lawyer's privilege or a reporter's freedom can expose him or her to great danger. The courts have imposed serious penalties on persons pretending to be lawyers. In the late 1960s the legal profession, encouraged by the courts, sought to impose standards of conduct upon lawyers. In Minnesota a Board of Professional Responsibility was set up. Two thirds of the board are lawyers, one third are lay persons.