Nieman Fellow Avoids Farber's Plight

The Supreme Court's refusal Monday to review a contempt citation against The York Times and its reporter, Myron Farber, for failing to divulge the names of confidential news sources, sent a chill down the spine of a Nieman Fellow here who said he could have become a second Myron Farber.

"If I had had to go through the prolonged process that Farber did, both my newspaper and I would be belly-up and out of business," Robert M. Porterfield, who earlier this month won a court fight in Alaska very similar to the Farber case, said yesterday. The 33-year-old Porterfield is a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for the Anchorage Daily News spending a year at Harvard in the Nieman Foundation's program for professional journalists.

Porterfield went back to Anchorage in early November in response to a subpoena requiring him to turn over notes and phone records on a series of stories published starting in March 1977. Porterfield's discovery of a complex financial fraud that the stories recounted led to the indictment of three people, two of whom have since pleaded guilty.

Keeping Secrets

The third defendant, Harry Neil Kelly, stood trial. But when Porterfield was asked during trial testimony to reveal confidential sources he used in his stories, he invoked the Alaska "Shield Law" 68 times. The 1967 law, never before tested, permits reporters to refuse to reveal their sources unless a judge orders them to after a special hearing. Kelly's defense lawyers won the right to a special hearing, but Porterfield won the right to hold on to the notes.

"My case was more typical of shield law conflicts because, unlike Farber's case, I at least got a hearing," said Porterfield, who termed himself "a purist who still believes that the first amendment gives blanket coverage to reporters."

But winning such a case does not always result in a happy ending, said Porterfield, who added that he still has $5000 to $8000 in outstanding legal fees. "And the management of my paper, I am told, is already backing off of other controversial stories that could result in other subpoenas," he said.

Free Press

Anthony Lewis, a lecturer at the Law School and columnist for The New York Times, said yesterday that he "regretted the court's refusal to review the case because I think the New Jersey court's actions were unfair to Mr. Farber and The Times."

But the court clearly decided on strict limitations on a reporter's right to withhold the names of his sources in 1972, Lewis said, disagreeing with Porterfield's contention that the nation has been left with "a patchwork of conflicting laws and decisions."

"There is no reason for overreaction on the part of anybody," Lewis said. "There is still freedom of the press in the country," he added