Why Bloggers and Citizen Journalists Deserve A Shield Law

I have been covering a little bit the Free Flow of Information bill.
Here‘s a great article on Media Shift about the inclusion, or omission, of bloggers and citizen journalists in the bill.

A survey from Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research released on September 22 found that 66 percent of journalists use blogs to assist in their reporting.

Legislators should add protection for citizen journalists and their sources to the Free Flow of Information Act. Otherwise, one of the key differences between journalists and citizen journalists will be that the latter must operate with no protection for themselves or their sources.

Tomorrow is the big day for the Shield Law

Great post at CJR.

The Judiciary Committee must stake a position on these issues, among others, before the bill can go any further. And while past committee meetings where the bill has been expected to move to the floor have come and gone without resolution, there’s suspicion that tomorrow could well be the day that some version of the bill is sent to the full floor.

*Edit: The committee spent all day on the PATRIOT Act and didn’t get to this.

Shield Law editorials…

Predictably, the NYT and WaPo shared their thoughts regarding S. 448: Free Flow of Information Act of 2009, the proposed shield law changes.

Follow the bill here.
Read the bill here.

Possible government definition of a “journalist”

There’s much action going on surrounding federal shield laws.
One of the things that needs to take place is a definition for a “journalist,” who would then be eligible for protection.
Here is the amendment with the suggested language:

(iii) obtains the information sought while working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, an entity—
(I) that disseminates information by print, broadcast, cable, satellite, mechanical, photographic, electronic, or other means; and
(II) that—
(aa) publishes a newspaper, book, magazine, or other periodical;
(bb) operates a radio or television broadcast station, network, cable system, or satellite carrier, or a channel or programming service for any such station, network, system, or carrier;
(cc) operates a programming service; or
(dd) operates a news agency or wire service;

While not bad, it makes no provisions for bloggers or student journalists. I have to say I’m not entirely mad at bloggers being omitted (I agree there are some journalist bloggers, but most are not, despite what they think or proclaim), but I find omitting student journalists the bothersome and suspect.