Media Must Keep Promises to Sources, Justices Rule : Press: Court says news organization can be forced to pay damages if it violates pledge of confidentiality.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a news organization can be forced to pay damages for revealing the name of a news source who had been promised confidentiality.

If an oral agreement between a reporter and a news source can be considered under state law to be a legally enforceable promise to maintain confidentiality, the First Amendment does not shield the reporter who breaks that promise, the justices said.

The court rejected the notion that the press has an absolute constitutional right to publish any information it chooses about a newsworthy event, as long as it is truthful.

“The First Amendment does not grant the press such limitless protection,” Justice Byron R. White wrote for the 5-4 majority. Rather, state courts may enforce laws that “simply require those making promises to keep them.”

A lawyer representing a Minnesota political activist who was exposed as the source of a damaging news leak praised the justices for making the press “subject to the same rules as everyone else.”

Media lawyers feared that the ruling could inspire a new round a lawsuits against the press. Those who are unhappy about how they appear in print accounts or on the air could claim what was said about them violated an implied agreement with the reporter, they said.

The case decided Monday concerned a peculiar situation. In most instances, news organizations go to court to protect the confidentiality of their sources. But, in this case, two newspapers were defending their decision to disclose the identity of a source--over his objections.

In the midst of the 1982 election campaign in Minnesota, Dan Cohen, a Republican activist who was aiding the Republican candidate for governor, offered reporters from four news organizations documents that would embarrass the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. Marlene Johnson, the Democratic candidate, had been arrested for “unlawful assembly” during a 1969 protest rally and for a $6 shoplifting charge in 1970.

Cohen insisted that his name not be used. Reporters for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Associated Press and WCCO-TV agreed and were given the documents.

The editors were presented with a dilemma. If they reported only the damaging documents, they would be allowing the Republicans to deal a last-minute blow to the Democrats. If they did not report them, they could be accused of engaging in a cover-up that shielded the Democrats.

Editors of the two newspapers chose to publish the documents but also to disclose that Cohen was the source. In both instances, the papers ignored their customary policy and overruled the wishes of their reporters.

AP reported the story, but without mentioning the source. WCCO-TV chose not to report anything, believing the 11th-hour news leak was unfair to the Democrats.

When his name appeared, Cohen was fired from his public relations job. He then sued the two papers, charging that they had breached a contract. A jury agreed and awarded him $200,000 in actual damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.

A state appeals court threw out the punitive damage verdict, and last year a divided Minnesota Supreme Court rejected the rest of the verdict.

The First Amendment’s protection of a free press forbids punishing a news organization for reporting accurate and newsworthy information in the midst of a political campaign, the Minnesota Supreme Court concluded.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment in part. “We conclude that the First Amendment does not confer on the press a constitutional right to disregard promises that could otherwise be enforced under state law,” White said in the case (Cohen vs. Cowles Media Co., 90-634). He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.

But the high court then sent the case back to Minnesota for the state courts to decide whether the oral agreement amounted to a legally enforceable promise.

Justice David H. Souter, in one of two dissents, said the press should be protected when it is providing the public with valuable information.

The “freedom of the press is ultimately founded on the value of enhancing such discourse for the sake of” a citizenry that is better informed and thus more prudently self-governed, Souter said. He was joined by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Harry A. Blackmun and Thurgood Marshall.

In a separate dissent, Blackmun questioned whether “truthful speech may ever be sanctioned consistent with the First Amendment.”

Several press attorneys said the ruling could spur a host of such cases in state courts.

“I think we will see a battle state by state whether the laws allow such a claim,” said Rex Heinke, a Los Angeles media lawyer who filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of several news organizations, including the Times Mirror Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times.

Neither the California courts nor state laws have made it clear whether a news organization may be sued for violating an implied oral promise, Heinke said. But the issue probably will be tested soon.

“This will give a green light to those who don’t like how they are covered and think they had an agreement with the reporter,” Heinke said.

“I predict this decision will create lots of problems for journalists,” said Jane Kirtley, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Sources who leak information and then get into trouble will claim they were promised certain things.”