Opinion ID: 2423992
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Shield Law provides:

Text: Subject to [ N.J.R.E. 530], a person engaged on, engaged in, connected with, or employed by news media for the purpose of gathering, procuring, transmitting, compiling, editing or disseminating news for the general public or on whose behalf news is so gathered, procured, transmitted, compiled, edited or disseminated has a privilege to refuse to disclose, in any legal or quasi-legal proceeding or before any investigative body, including, but not limited to, any court, grand jury, petit jury, administrative agency, the Legislature or legislative committee, or elsewhere. a. The source, author, means, agency or person from or through whom any information was procured, obtained, supplied, furnished, gathered, transmitted, compiled, edited, disseminated, or delivered; and b. Any news or information obtained in the course of pursuing his professional activities whether or not it is disseminated. [ N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21 (emphasis added); see also N.J.R.E. 508 (codifying Shield Law into Rules of Evidence).] News media is defined as newspapers, magazines, press associations, news agencies, wire services, radio, television or other similar printed, photographic, mechanical or electronic means of disseminating news to the general public. N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21a(a). Newspapers, magazines, and the like are specifically defined in accordance with their traditional meanings. See N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21a(c)-(g). Newspaper, for example, is defined as a paper that is printed and distributed ordinarily not less frequently than once a week and that contains news, articles of opinion, editorials, features, advertising, or other matter regarded as of current interest, has a paid circulation and has been entered at a United States post office as second class matter. [ N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21a(c).] News means any written, oral or pictorial information gathered, procured, transmitted, compiled, edited or disseminated by, or on behalf of any person engaged in, engaged on, connected with or employed by a news media and so procured or obtained while such required relationship is in effect. N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21a(b). Finally, [i]n the course of pursuing his professional activities is defined as any situation, including a social gathering, in which a reporter obtains information for the purpose of disseminating it to the public, but does not include any situation in which a reporter intentionally conceals from the source the fact that he is a reporter.... N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21a(h). The statute's language is circular, intertwining the meaning of news media and news. The statute also uses broad language but nevertheless requires those seeking the privilege to have some connection to news media. N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21. Both parties accept that the plain language of the statute requires that a person ... [must be] engaged in [or] connected with ... news media.... See ibid. (Defendant maintains that she meets that test through her relationship with Pornafia.) That language does not mean that a newsperson must be employed as a journalist for a traditional newspaper or have a direct tie to an established magazine. But he or she must have some nexus, relationship, or connection to news media as that term is defined. Amicus ACLU, though, parses the statute differently. It reads the following underscored language as an independent, alternative basis to assert the privilege: a person ... connected with, or employed by news media for the purpose of gathering... news. Ibid. In other words, the ACLU argues that one can either be connected with gathering news or employed by news media for the purpose of gathering news to be eligible for the privilege, but one need not be connected with news media. That technical view overlooks other aspects of the statute. For example, the news being gathered, according to the law's definitional section, must be gathered by a person engaged in, engaged on, connected with or employed by a news media. N.J.S.A. 2A:84A-21a(b). Also, that news must be procured by or obtained while such required relationship is in effect. Ibid. (emphasis added). Thus, even under the ACLU's reading, a person connected with gathering news must still have some connection with news media. It is also difficult to square the ACLU's reading with the Shield Law's history. For example, under the 1960 version of the statute,  a person engaged on, connected with, or employed by, a newspaper has a privilege to refuse to disclose. L. 1960, c. 52 (emphasis added). The legislative history to the 1977 and 1979 amendments, discussed below, reveals that changes to the statute were not intended to eliminate the required nexus to news media. See In re Schuman, 114 N.J. 14, 21-23, 552 A. 2d 602 (1989); Maressa, supra, 89 N.J. at 184-88, 445 A. 2d 376.