There is a jarring logical disconnect between the media's current twin demands for more openness in government and laws to exempt reporters and editors from normal evidence-gathering processes of our legal system.

"Sunshine laws" and "shield laws" are in fundamental conflict. While sunshine laws are designed to allow the public to see more of the workings of their government (and even some of the workings of those private businesses with government contracts), shield laws would close off much of journalism's workings to public oversight.

It's an odd thing to be demanding more transparency in government at the same time we're requesting the right to pull the curtains ever more tightly around our own activities.

In truth, "shield" laws should more properly be referred to as "more secrecy in journalism" laws.

Of course, they're not pitched that way by those who are trying to sell them to politicians and the public. In the eyes of their supporters, shield laws protect journalists and allow us to provide better news coverage by allowing us to refuse to identify unnamed sources interviewed for stories -- even if a judge determines those sources are legitimate witnesses in a criminal or civil legal case.

But shield laws are bad for journalists, bad for our readers and viewers, and bad for society as a whole.

Bad for reporters

Shield laws are harmful to reporters on two fronts.

The more immediately troubling issue, even to many of those who support shield laws, is that a shield law is a sort of backdoor government licensing of journalists. While many nations require a budding reporter or editor to register with the government before they can begin work as a journalist, the United States has never had such a system. The First Amendment of the Constitution gives every American citizen the right to free speech -- meaning anyone can be a reporter without so much as a "by your leave" from the government.

But shield laws, because they exempt only reporters and editors from the normal subpoena process, practically demand that a judge decide who is and who isn't a "real" journalist -- if only because attorneys trying to get to those sources are going to argue that Reporter X or Editor Y isn't covered by the local shield law because they're not real journalists. Is a part-time reporter for the local alternative weekly covered by a state or federal shield law? What about a blogger who quotes an unidentified source?

With both print and broadcast news outlets in economic disarray and more and more folks getting their news online, it may not be long before judges see bloggers as more legitimate than those working in the more traditional media. Regardless, the concept of judges determining who is and who isn't a "real" reporter ought to worry anyone who cares about a free press.

A second way in which shield laws hurt the very folks who are seeking them is that they drive an unnecessary wedge between journalists and our readers and viewers. Because we've traditionally relied upon the same First Amendment free-speech rights available to any U.S. citizen, there's always been a bond between reporters and our audience. More than a profession, we've really been a service industry -- as the posters for the Will Ferrell spoof "Anchorman" put it, "They bring you the news so you don't have to get it yourself." There was a truth in that: Most folks are too busy working and raising their families and otherwise living to have time to go sit in the courthouse, at the state legislature, at the police department and find out what's going on.

So we do it for them -- not through any special powers, but just as interested citizens using universal rights under the First Amendment and sunshine laws, who then report on what we've seen and heard.

Giving us legal protection not available to everyone else can only weaken that relationship, and create resentments and indifference to our arguments on other issues of interest to everyone, like sunshine laws.

Bad for readers, viewers

If shield laws become commonplace, they can only result in an increased reliance on unnamed, often unidentified sources in our reporting. And this would rob our readers and viewers of important contextual information in the news we provide them. It is difficult, if not impossible, to judge the credibility of sources when they're not fully identified.

When we get sources to talk about a story on the record, our readers then know exactly who is making what claims. Readers can then decide for themselves whether this person has an ax to grind on the issue at hand.

Without that information, readers have no way to determine how much weight to give claims made in a story.

Bad for society

Beyond the above damage to the journalism industry and the deleterious effect on the credibility of our reporting, there is the larger reality that shield laws would be harmful to our representative form of governance.

This nation was founded on the concept of the primacy of the individual -- that we all have the same rights, simply through our existence. Assigning rights based on employment goes against the concept of universal equality and tears at the fabric of our representative democracy

Besides, whether shield laws can even pass constitutional muster is highly questionable. The Constitution's Sixth Amendment specifically says those charged with a crime can compel testimony from witnesses; it says nothing about citizens in certain lines of work being able to opt out of that process.

And Congress does not have the statutory power to change the Constitution.

Here's hoping it doesn't take a judge to make that clear.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at jtrageser@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5408.