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Alabama Supreme Court weighs scope of reporter's shield in New York Times defamation case
Summary
The state's high court heard argument on whether Alabama's reporter's shield protects only a source's identity (name) or also information that would reasonably identify a confidential source. Counsel for the Times urged a standard protecting information that reasonably identifies a source; the plaintiff's counsel emphasized the need to learn what the newspaper knew before publication.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. ' The Supreme Court of Alabama heard oral argument in SC20250370 over how broadly the state's reporter's shield applies, a dispute at the center of a defamation suit brought by Kai Spears against The New York Times Company.
Chad Bowman, counsel for The New York Times, told the court that "both certified questions today from the Northern District of Alabama relate to the interpretation of the same statute, Alabama's nearly century old reporter shield law," and urged the court to adopt a standard under which the shield protects information that would "reasonably identify" a confidential source. Bowman said the Times had asserted privilege over a narrow set of materials produced in discovery: "phone numbers from the reporter's call records, the meeting logistics that would reveal where the reporter met source A, photographs that…
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