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.
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