There are a lot of documents about illegal activities, like about making/selling drugs for example. Most of them involve some kind of interview with people who are actively involved in those criminal activities. I can imagine that some of those interviews are fake but if they are not, then a journalist might get into having an important knowledge about identities/contacts/places etc. Don’t they then get questioned by a police? I know they would lose their credibility if they gave away this information but don’t they get under pressure to let go of this information to the authorities?
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Documentarians are, in the United States, covered by reporter’s privilege, which in most states means that they are exempt from having to report witnessing or documenting crimes unless called upon to testify as part of a grand jury. There are exceptions; child abuse needs to be reported everywhere, and some states have less protections (Ohio, for instance, requires reporters to report felonies which they document).
Police are allowed to ask anyone questions at any time, but no one is compelled to say *anything* to the police (again, this is true in the US but may differ in other countries). Since simply witnessing or documenting a crime is not itself a crime, the reporter cannot be held.
Additionally, saying on-camera “I killed this person” is not a crime in itself, so simply conducting an interview, even one in which a person claims to have committed a crime, is not a criminal act in any way.
because you’re not legally required to report a crime or act as a witness (in the US at least). It’s not just reporters, it is everyone (with some exceptions for people like a police officer, for example.)
It’s more commonly accepted for a reporter because protecting your sources comes with the territory and as such they generally have lawyers that make sure law enforcement doesn’t infringe on these rights.
All of this goes out the window if you are summoned to testify in court. Back to the lawyers thing. The courts will do their damnedest to honor the confidence of a source, but reporters do get called to testify sometimes and would be required to give up the info or face charges.
> Don’t they then get questioned by a police?
Generally not, because the police understand that journalists don’t want to talk about their sources or they won’t get any more interviews. There also isn’t anything the police can legally do to get that information out of them if they don’t want to reveal it. Simply knowing that information isn’t a crime and if the police decided to somehow steal the information it would be illegally obtained and unusable in court.
Talking to criminals isn’t illegal. Filming illegal activities is not illegal. Knowing important details about criminals and crimes is not illegal. So if the police show up and ask about those things the journalists can just say “No, I’m not talking to you.”
They are protected by the First and Fifth Amendments. There is no legal requirement to talk to police nor to report criminal activity (except under very specific circumstances, such as with “Mandated Reporters”).
There are two groups of people that you don’t talk to.
#1 is Police.
#2 is journalist.
And police and journalist know this rule and try to avoid each other.
If you find a cop and a journalist on your front porch. It’s going to be a bad day. Don’t make it worse by talking to either.
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