The Nation - News from Sept. 5, 1989

Two newspapers that identified a source who had been promised anonymity must pay him $200,000 in compensatory damages but not the $500,000 in punitive damages also awarded by a Hennepin County jury, the Minnesota Court of Appeals said. The First Amendment guarantee of press freedom does not protect the Star Tribune of Minneapolis or the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch from liability under contract laws, in this case their reporters’ oral promises of confidentiality, the three-judge panel said in upholding the compensatory damage award. But the court rejected public relations man Dan Cohen’s claim of misrepresentation and said he is not entitled to punitive damages.