For all the First Amendment’s guarantees about Freedom of thePress, news gathering often remains a difficult business.

Open meetings and public records laws, like the ones inMississippi, are sometimes ignored and even when followed are stillinadequate to compel public officials to do what they rightlyshould do. Recent privacy laws make finding out something as simpleas how an accident victim is doing more difficult. And for alltheir best efforts, reporters can’t be everywhere all the time todocument anything and everything that someone may think isimportant.

Quite frankly, we need help sometimes.

Occasionally, on sensitive issues of great public importance,that help needs to come from a source who needs to be protected.Any journalist worth his salt is willing to go to jail to protectthat source.

But that should not have to be the case, and journalists shouldnot have to face that pressure after getting a court subpoenaseeking the identity of a source.

That is why passage of the Free Flow of Information Act is soimportant in the public’s right to know.

The measure last week passed the U.S. House of Representativeson a 398-21 vote and now awaits action in the Senate. The Bushadministration already is mulling a veto over concerns about theability to track down leaks of information that may threatennational security.

The administration’s position may have merit if legitimatenational security concerns were actually the reason for seeking areporter’s source.

The most recent and well-publicized case involving reporters’sources, though, was nothing more than political gamesmanship overwho revealed a CIA operative’s status to syndicated columnistRobert Novak. This overblown saga had little to do with nationalsecurity and a lot to do with disgruntled Democrats and specialprosecutors using reporters as pawns in an effort to make Bush lookbad.

Sources must be able to trust the reporters to whom they speakand reporters must be free from reprisals and prosecutions for notrevealing their relationships with those sources. Supporters of thebill hailed its passage as a significant step toward that end.

“Protections provided by the Free Flow of Information Act arenecessary so that members of the media can bring forwardinformation to the public without fear of retribution orprosecution, and more importantly, so that sources will continue tocome forward,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the bill’s co-author.”Without the free flow of information from sources to reporters,the public will be ill-prepared to make informed choices.”

Mississippi is not among just over 30 states that have passedtheir own versions of shield laws, but there are some trial rulingsthat have provided some protections for journalists in the MagnoliaState. While court rulings and case law may help, they are notabsolutes.

Enactment of a federal law would provide protections forjournalists and clarity for instances where there would be anoverwhelming reason for a journalist to be forced to reveal hissource. Those instances should be few and great discretion shouldbe taken when seeking such information from a journalist.

Also, the federal law would provide a template for states – suchas Mississippi – to follow in enacting shield laws for their statecourts.

The federal law is aptly named in that it is intended to protectthe free flow of information. And that’s a good thing – forreporters, their sources and the public in general.