Analysis
Canadian journalists need a shield law to protect their confidential sources and ensure the free flow of information. That’s the conclusion of Diana Ginsberg, a graduate student in media law at London’s City University who examined how courts in Canada and Britain deal with attempts to expose media sources. While finding no conclusive proof sources will dry up without a shield law, she argues that formal legal protection is better than “the courts simply asserting that it must be relevant and necessary for a journalist to disclose.”
Read Ginsberg’s thesis, “Moral Imperatives Protected or Punished: Journalists Breaking the Law or Their Word for Their Sources’ Protection.”