Radio talk-show host claims reporter's privilege in fighting subpoena
By The Associated Press,
freedomforum.org staff
10.29.01
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Is a radio talk-show host a journalist?
A special prosecutor probing the leak of a secret Operation Plunder Dome video raised that question in papers filed in U.S. District Court seeking the deposition of John DePetro, of radio station WHJJ.
DePetro’s lawyer, Joseph V. Cavanagh Jr., recently asked the court to reject the motion, citing the reporter’s privilege.
The reporter’s privilege protects journalists from being forced to turn over the identification of sources or information received from confidential sources, said Kevin Goldberg, an attorney with the Washington, D.C., law firm Cohn and Marks.
This privilege is a protection under the First Amendment, and some states (including Rhode Island) have passed shield laws to fill in the gaps to make this protection explicit under state statutes, Goldberg said.
But only the First Amendment applies in this case because it’s the federal government that’s seeking information from DePetro, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“The Rhode Island shield law would only protect him if it were a state prosecutor who was trying to subpoena him,” Dalglish said. “So in this case only First Amendment protection applies, but it should be a good protection for him,” she said.
The debate is now expected to move to a federal courtroom where Judge Ernest C. Torres will listen to Cavanagh and Marc DeSisto, the special prosecutor, lay out their positions, The Providence Journal reported.
Several weeks ago, DeSisto subpoenaed DePetro, known as the Independent Man, as part of his investigation into how a government videotape, purporting to show Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr.’s top aide taking a cash bribe, was leaked to a local television station.
The station, Channel 10 (WJAR) and its reporter, Jim Taricani, aired the tape in February. The tape allegedly shows Frank E. Corrente, Cianci’s longtime director of administration, taking a $1,000 bribe from businessman Antonio R. Freitas, who was working undercover for the FBI.
Freitas was seeking a lease from the city when he delivered the bribe. The tape is one of nearly 200 secretly recorded by Freitas in his undercover efforts for the FBI in 1998 and early 1999.
Cianci, Corrente and four others have been indicted on federal corruption charges.
DePetro said he is, in fact, a journalist and should be afforded the same First Amendment privileges.
Cavanagh said DeSisto should be seeking the information from Channel 10 — not DePetro.
DeSisto said that the court’s interests in protecting the rights of the accused to a fair trial “outweigh the limited newsmen privilege,” cited by DePetro.
DePetro has aggressively covered Operation Plunder Dome on his radio show, which went on the air in 1999, four months before the probe became public.
Update
Prosecutor gets go-ahead to question radio host in R.I. corruption probe
Federal judge says John DePetro can assert reporter's privilege — but only if it involves information 'obtained by a journalist acting in his journalistic capacity.'
01.08.02
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