Pack a room with journalists and, odds are, you’ll find more fights than friendships. We have camaraderie, but also competitiveness.

Where we all agree, however, is that it’s essential to our integrity to defend our sources, especially if the source went in harm’s way to do so.

Journalists now have vigorous protection under the First Amendment to proffer such protection. Many states, however, also have “shield” laws specifying how journalists protect, or reveal, the identity of confidential sources.

Maine lawmakers will debate a shield law on Jan. 24. Rep. Jon Hinck, D-Portland, submitted LD 2074 with the intent to make source protection paramount. This is why a shield law deserves strong support from the public.

Hinck, who is experienced in connecting sources with journalists, proffered this bill for the public good, not the privilege of an industry. He wants sources to be confident of their legal rights and protections.

And, as journalists, so do we. We understand the difficulty of “going public” with information, especially if it’s explosive or sensitive, or if its revelation could cost the source their job, freedom or even worse. Yet the pursuit of truth relies on these brave souls to put themselves at risk, for the benefit of all.

Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers, for example. Or Watergate’s infamous “Deep Throat.” Or anyone and everyone who knows something is wrong, and wants to make it right. They deserve protection under the law.

We support a shield law for Maine, to ensure sources are safeguarded.

Yet this debate inevitably leads to a core question among quarrelsome journalists: If we have the First Amendment on our side, do we even need a shield law? In the high-stakes poker game of informing the public, some argue, it makes little sense to play the jack, while holding the ace of spades.

Nor, they say, should journalists, freed from government interference by the architects of our nation, allow government to define – or dictate – when we must, or must not, reveal information. The inroad of a shield law could only serve to erode this cherished Constitutional protection.

Yet nothing can.

When sources require safeguarding, it is journalists who assume the responsibility and risk. To protect these sources, the shield law further protects journalists, who still wield the strongest shield of all: the First Amendment. Yes, this could be interpreted as double protection for journalists, and some sort of privilege bestowed by law.

But for citizens, perhaps frightened or unwilling to speak about an injustice, a shield is their specific protection under law, when dealing with journalists. The source-journalist relationship is symbiotic; one cannot exist without the other. With the First Amendment, however, only the journalist was definitively protected from persecution.

A shield law can level this ground, and free people from fear of retribution.

Everyone, even journalists, should agree on that.