FoxNews.com reporter in First Amendment fight
Jana Winter refuses court order to name confidential sources. Reaction from country's top First Amendment lawyer and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who spent 85 days in jail herself
Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail in 2005 for protecting the identity of her Bush administration source who was involved in the controversial disclosure of a CIA employee's identity.
Now, Fox News reporter Jana Winter is facing the same fate for refusing to reveal her source in an exclusive story on a notebook allegedly kept by James Holmes, the accused shooter in the July 2012 movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo.
Winter has maintained that she will not reveal her source.
Miller and Floyd Abrams, her attorney during her legal fight, appeared on "America Live With Megyn Kelly" on Friday to discuss the brewing First Amendment battle.
"I think that it's a choice that no journalist should have to make," Miller told Kelly, adding that it would destroy her career if she did.
Miller called her stance "very important for journalism and for a free press."
If the judge orders Winter to answer and she refuses, he may send her to jail immediately, Abrams said. "The idea of this, usually, is that she's supposed to stay until she talks."
"The problem is it can on and on and on until the judge is persuaded that she's never going to talk," he said, adding that it could be months and longer.
A judge sent Miller to jail for the same stance, where she spent 85 days before her source, Scooter Libby, gave her permission to reveal his identity. Miller said she would not wish the same fate on any other reporter.
"But I can say there are worse things, which is losing the confidence of the people we need to tell the story to the American people," Miller said.
A Colorado judge is expected to decide Wednesday whether Winter will be called to testify.
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