Judge Dents Illinois Shield Law

Madison County (Ill.) Circuit Court Judge Richard Tognarelli has rebuffed The Alton Telegraph's invoking of the state's shield law to withhold the identities of anonymous bloggers on the newspaper's Web site.
Five bloggers, who posted comments anonymously on a Telegraph news article concerning the fatal beating of a five-year-old boy, were the subject of a subpoena from Madison County sheriff's detectives, who sought to question the individuals. The Telegraph sought to quash the subpoena, arguing that Illinois' shield law protecting journalists from disclosing their sources also screened the identities of the bloggers from being revealed. Judge Tognarelli rejected the argument in his decision on May 15, holding the shield law "does not address the applicability of the Act to online bloggers," which he said is the province of the Legislature. Posting comments on a newspaper Web site does not make a blogger a news source, attorneys for the state successfully argued. Judge Tognarelli did rule, however, that only two of the bloggers, who may have relevant information to the murder investigation, had to be named, and not three other bloggers whose remarks he deemed not useful to the murder probe.
Not a terribly progressive viewpoint from the Land of Lincoln. Courts in other states, ranging from Montana, in a case involving The Billings Gazette, to Oregon, in a case involving The Portland Mercury and Wilamette Week, have held that shield laws do protect newspapers from having to disclose the names of those anonymous bloggers who comment on news stories.