For further information, contact:

Chris Finan, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, chris@abffe.com, (212) 587-4025, ext. 15.


ABFFE Seeks Bookstores for More Reporters’ Talks

NEW YORK, NY, Jan. 3, 2008–The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller’s voice in the fight against censorship, announced today that it is seeking bookstores to host reporters who want to speak about the growing effort to force journalists to reveal their confidential sources. In 2006, ABFFE organized a series of bookstore programs to educate the public about the importance of confidential sources for a free press. “Seventeen bookstores hosted some of this country’s leading journalists and were very pleased with the results,” ABFFE President Chris Finan said. “This year’s programs will occur against the background of the dramatic fight to pass a reporters’ shield law in Congress.”

Bookstores interested in hosting a reporter should contact ABFFE. It will work with the MLRC Institute to identify a media lawyer in the area who will then find a reporter who has worked on major stories that could not have been reported without the use of confidential sources. The MLRC Institute, a not-for-profit educational organization focused on the media and the First Amendment, has received a grant from the McCormick Tribune Foundation to educate the public on this issue.

In addition to discussing these stories, the speaker will distribute and discuss material about the history of the fight over confidential sources, which dates back to efforts to imprison colonial journalists John Peter Zenger and Benjamin Franklin’s brother, James.

Although prosecutors and journalists have long battled over confidential sources, there has been a large increase in the number of subpoenas issued to reporters in recent years. New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail for 85 days before her source, I. Lewis Libby, released her from a confidentiality agreement covering conversations about Valerie Plame, a CIA officer married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. In 2006, a video blogger named Josh Wolf was jailed for civil contempt for 226 days for refusing to hand over to a federal grand jury out-takes of his video of a protest that took place in San Francisco in July 2005. Lawyers for Steven Hatfill, who was mentioned as a possible suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, have subpoenaed a dozen news organizations in Mr. Hatfill’s lawsuit against the government. In August 2007, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered five journalists to disclose their sources for their stories about Mr. Hatfill or risk being held in contempt of court.

In October, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Free Flow of Information Act (H.R. 2102), which protects the confidentiality of reporters’ sources in most federal cases. However, the fight is expected to get tougher when the Senate takes up the bill this year. The Justice Department opposes it, and President Bush is likely to veto it if it reaches him.

Booksellers who are interested in participating should contact ABFFE President Chris Finan, chris@abffe.com, (212) 587-4025, ext. 15.