Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663 (1991), was a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that the First Amendment freedom of the press does not exempt journalists from generally applicable laws.

[1] Dan Cohen, a Republican associated with Wheelock Whitney's 1982 Minnesota gubernatorial run, provided inculpatory information on the Democratic challenger for Lieutenant Governor, Marlene Johnson, to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press in exchange for a promise that his identity as the source would not be published.

The Cowles Media Company was found liable based on a theory of promissory estoppel.

The Supreme Court found, in a majority decision, that: Justice Blackmun's dissent focussed on the proposition that applying promissory estoppel punished the publication of truth.

Justice Souter's dissent was based on the balance of "the importance of the information to public discourse" to the other interests involved.