By The Arizona Republic Editorial board
Our modern, complex world is chock full of ambiguity and contradiction, but few political paradoxes are quite as odd as this one:
Gridlocked by partisanship, Congress appears to be moving toward bipartisan support for legislation helpful to the one national institution both parties often hold equally in contempt, the press.
There are reasons that support for a media “shield law” is growing among Democrats and Republicans. Not all of them are high-minded.
Nevertheless, the goal of a law shielding reporters and their sources within government against prying prosecutors is to create the sort of transparency that politicians often back in theory but not so much in practice.
The recent scandals involving intrusive, secretive, oppressive government have opened the door for this much-debated First Amendment-enabling legislation to pass. Not only to pass, but to do so with support from both sides of the aisle.
