NY shield law protects WSJ’s Zuckerman

Wall Street Journal writer Gregory Zuckerman is protected by the state’s Shield Law from revealing, as part of an Oklahoma divorce action, the confidential information he gathered while writing his 2013 book on “wildcat” natural gas entrepreneurs, a Manhattan judge has ruled.

Joel Stashenko of the New York Law Journal writes, “Supreme Court Justice Donna Mills (See Profile) denied the attempt by the wife of Harold Hamm, one of the six businessmen profiled in Zuckerman’s book, to subpoena the writer to produce all ‘audio and visual recordings, notes, interviews, emails, materials, records, well valuation, and all other documents’ related to Hamm and his company, Continental Resources, Inc. (CRI) of Oklahoma City.

“Zuckerman, a special writer for The Wall Street Journal, was author of ‘The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.’ It was published by Portfolio/Penguin.

“Mills ruled that Zuckerman is protected against making disclosures to Sue Ann Hamm by the journalists’ Shield Law, state Civil Rights Law §79-h. The statute, enacted in 1970, generally bars a New York court from holding a journalist in contempt for refusing to reveal the identities of confidential news sources.

“The judge determined in Matter of Hamm (Zuckerman), 154581/14, that Sue Ann Hamm failed to demonstrate that the information she is seeking is unavailable elsewhere and justifies violating the writer’s Shield Law rights.”