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Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern joined National Public Radio’s 1A to discuss the urgent need for the Senate to finally pass the bipartisan PRESS Act and protect journalist-source confidentiality.
Stern emphasized that the PRESS Act is a bipartisan solution to a bipartisan problem — administrations from both political parties have come after journalists’ sources, as have local prosecutors and litigants in cases that have nothing to do with presidential politics.
“A subpoena is a subpoena. A contempt finding is a contempt finding, and jail is jail,” Stern explained. “And whether it's Donald Trump, Barack Obama, or somebody else who is coming after a journalist, the repercussions are the same."
He added that Trump, who recently called for Republicans to kill the PRESS Act, “should consider that this is not only about the mainstream media, not only about the journalists that he personally dislikes. It's about all journalists, including journalists who benefit him by exposing the stories that he wants told."
Axios journalist Sara Fischer and former Fox and CBS journalist Catherine Herridge — who is currently appealing an order holding her in contempt of court for not burning a source — also joined the show.
Herridge, who has requested a conversation with Trump to explain why he should support the PRESS Act, explained that if she hadn't had a credible pledge of confidentiality, she would never have been able to expose what she characterized as defects in the Russia collusion case.
You can listen to the full episode here.
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