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Will Fox News Reporter have to Reveal Anonymous Sources in James Holmes Reporting?

Fox News reporter Jana Winter found out about a notebook belonging to James Holmes, the man accused in the infamous Colorado movie theater mass murder, from two unnamed sources in “law enforcement.”

Winter’s story reported that James Holmes sent a notebook describing a future attack to a psychiatrist.  Her July 25 report about the Dark Knight Rises shootings in Aurora, Colorado last summer quoted the sources describing what was in the notebook and how the police got a warrant for the notebook. The report doesn’t say if Winter herself saw the notebook. One source told her

“Inside the package was a notebook full of details about how he was going to kill people…There were drawings of what he was going to do in it — drawings and illustrations of the massacre.”

As Fox News explained, Holmes’ legal team wants to know if Winter’s anonymous sources are officials who broke a gag order.

Winter argued that she doesn’t have to name her sources under the state’s shield law since her reporting was in the public interest, according to Fox News, which noted that “fourteen cops and investigators have denied being her source under oath.”

The next step in the battle over her sources is an April 10 hearing, according to the Associated Press.