Editing Journalism (section)

==Legal status==
{{Main|Freedom of the press|Media law}}
[[File:Turkish journalists protesting imprisonment of their colleagues in 2016.jpg|thumb|Turkish journalists protesting [[Media freedom in Turkey|imprisonment of their colleagues]] on [[Human Rights Day]], 10 December 2016]]
[[File:10.1177 0022343316680859-fig1.gif|thumb|Number of journalists reported killed between 2002 and 2013<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gohdes|first1=AR|last2=Carey|first2=SC|title=Canaries in a coal-mine? What the killings of journalists tell us about future repression|journal=Journal of Peace Research|date=March 2017|volume=54|issue=2|pages=157–74|pmid=28546646|doi=10.1177/0022343316680859|pmc=5427995}}</ref>]]
Governments have widely varying policies and practices towards journalists, which control what they can research and write, and what press organizations can publish. Some governments guarantee the freedom of the press; while other nations severely restrict what journalists can research or publish.

Journalists in many nations have some privileges that members of the general public do not, including better access to public events, crime scenes and press conferences, and to extended interviews with public officials, celebrities and others in the public eye.

Journalists who elect to cover [[War|conflicts]], whether wars between nations or [[insurgency|insurgencies]] within nations, often give up any expectation of protection by government, if not giving up their rights to protection from the government. Journalists who are captured or detained during a conflict are expected to be treated as civilians and to be released to their national government. Many governments around the world target journalists for intimidation, harassment, and violence because of the nature of their work.<ref>{{cite web|title=Press Freedom Online|url=http://www.cpj.org/|publisher=Committee to Protect Journalists}}</ref>

===Right to protect confidentiality of sources===
{{Main|Protection of sources}}

Journalists' interaction with sources sometimes involves [[confidentiality]], an extension of freedom of the press giving journalists a legal protection to keep the identity of a [[confidential informant]] private even when demanded by police or prosecutors; withholding their sources can land journalists in contempt of court, or in jail.

In the United States, there is no right to protect sources in a [[Federal government of the United States|federal]] court. However, federal courts will refuse to force journalists to reveal their sources, unless the information the court seeks is highly relevant to the case and there is no other way to get it. State courts provide varying degrees of such protection. Journalists who refuse to testify even when ordered to can be found in [[contempt of court]] and fined or jailed. On the journalistic side of keeping sources confidential, there is also a risk to the journalist's credibility because there can be no actual confirmation of whether the information is valid. As such it is highly discouraged for journalists to have confidential sources<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lashmar |first=Paul |date=2017-07-03 |title=No More Sources?: The impact of Snowden's revelations on journalists and their confidential sources |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512786.2016.1179587 |journal=Journalism Practice |language=en |volume=11 |issue=6 |pages=665–688 |doi=10.1080/17512786.2016.1179587 |s2cid=147752393 |issn=1751-2786}}</ref>