As Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi points out (free link), while it is illegal to leak grand jury information, it is not illegal for a news outlet to publish a story based on that leaked information. An outrageous breach of the First Amendment in Atmore, Alabama, where a reporter and the publisher of the weekly Atmore News face criminal charges for committing journalism.
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Stephen Walker
That’s a tough one for me. If it is illegal to disclose grand jury info, this implies it is illegal to report on that disclosure with the details that made the disclosure illegal. At an ethical level, the First Amendment has to take a back seat sometimes to speech that creates dangerous situations. The inaccurate reporting of a major weather event comes to mind.
Lex Alexander
This BS will stop when DAs who do it start going to prison.