Court Opinion

ID: 9629506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:43:49.635508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:47.687064
License: Public Domain

Mowbray, C. J.,
dissenting:
Respectfully, I dissent.
Nevada has a strong shield law. NRS 49.275 provides:
No reporter, former reporter or editorial employee of any newspaper, periodical or press association or employee of any radio or television station may be required to disclose any published or unpublished information obtained or prepared by such person in such person’s professional capacity in gathering, receiving or processing information for communication to the public, or the source of any information procured or obtained by such person, in any legal proceedings, trial or investigation:
1. Before any court, grand jury, coroner’s inquest, jury or any officer thereof.
*3732. Before the legislature or any committee thereof.
3. Before any department, agency or commission of the state.
4. Before any local governing body or committee thereof, or any officer of a local government.
It is true that one who enjoys a news reporter privilege may waive it by voluntarily disclosing any significant part of the matter. The waiver does not apply if the disclosure is a privileged communication.1
In the case at hand, Newburn voluntarily disclosed conversations he had with Terry Moore in her home and his observation of certain documents located therein. The effect of our order today requires Newburn to testify under oath not only to those aforementioned matters but to all other matters “relating thereto”. This, I believe, goes too far and is in contravention of the shield law. The courts must, in such cases, be cautious and enter only those orders that are firmly predicated upon a strict interpretation of the shield law. The reasons are obvious. As Mr. Justice Douglas said in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665 (1972) at 721:
Fear of exposure will cause dissidents to communicate less openly to trusted reporters. And, fear of accountability will cause editors and critics to write with more restrained pens.
I see no way of making mandatory the disclosure of a reporter’s confidential source of the information on which he bases his news story.
The press has a preferred position in our constitutional scheme, not to enable it to make money, not to set newsmen apart as a favored class, but to bring fulfillment to the public’s right to know. The right to know is crucial to the governing powers of the people, to paraphrase Alexander Meiklejohn. Knowledge is essential to informed decisions.
As Mr. Justice Black said in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 717 (concurring opinion), “The. press was to serve the governed, not the governors. . . . The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.”

 NRS 49.385:
“1. A person upon whom these rules confer a privilege against disclosure of a confidential matter waives the privilege if he or his predecessor while holder of the privilege voluntarily discloses or consents to disclosure of any significant part of the matter.
“2. This section does not apply if the disclosure is itself a privileged communication.”