Press Release
July 6, 2005
NAHJ Outraged by Imprisonment of New York Times Reporter Judith Miller
Washington – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists condemns the imprisonment of New York Times journalist Judith Miller by a federal judge and calls on Congress to immediately pass a federal shield law.
Miller was jailed today for possibly four months for refusing to reveal a source during a federal investigation into the leak of the identity of a CIA agent. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the cases of Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper and Miller.
Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury after his souce allowed him to break their confidentiality agreement. He was spared a civil contempt charge and jail time.
“This is a major setback to freedom of the press,” said Rafael Olmeda, NAHJ’s vice president of print and chair of the association's issues committee. “That a reporter can be held accountable for a story that was not even written sends a dangerous message both to journalists and to potential whistleblowers.”
NAHJ is outraged over Miller’s imprisonment and calls on Congress to pass a federal shield law that would protect journalists from revealing confidential sources.
Founded in 1984, NAHJ's mission is to increase the percentage of Latinos working in our nation's newsrooms and to improve news coverage of the Latino community. NAHJ is the nation's largest professional organization for Latino journalists with more than 2,300 members working in English and Spanish-language print, photo, broadcast and online media.
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