Confidential Sources Are Essential to the Public Interest

The ability of news reporters to assure confidentiality to sources is fundamental to their ability to deliver news on highly contentious matters of broad public interest. Without the promise of confidentiality, many sources would be reluctant to provide important facts to reporters, and the public would suffer from the resulting lack of information.

Congressman Pence and I have introduced the Free Flow of Information Act because the public’s right to know should be paramount in a particular federal case. In many instances, the critical information which alerts federal prosecutors to initiate a criminal investigation or provides civil litigants with facts giving rise to a private cause of action is contained in a news story which could only have been reported upon assurance of anonymity to the news source.