US Reps Rick Boucher, Mike Pence, John Conyers, Howard Coble, John Yarmuth, and Greg Walden have introduced a bill that would provide some protections to blogger-journalists.
HR 2102 IH, the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, so far has only been approved by the House Judiciary Committee.
The Corresponding Senate Bill is S. 1267, introduced by Richard Lugar, Lindsey Graham, Pete Domenici, and Mary Lanrieu.
The nice thing about it is that it would place restrictions on the ability of the Court to compel bloggers to reveal confidential sources of information, to provide testimony, or to turn over documents. The same limits would apply to communications service providers.
The Bill defines Journalism as follows:
JOURNALISM- The term `journalism' means the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.
Persons covered under the Act would include:
COVERED PERSON- The term `covered person' means a person engaged in journalism and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.
Good news for parents, there.
The Bush administration had expressed opposition to the Bill. In response, the authors of the Bill may narrow the scope somewhat to include only persons who make money by blogging. The thing about that, is that anyone can run Google Ads or something like that, so it probably would not be much of an exclusion.
Comments
I think bloggers should have all the protections and also all the responsibilities of journalism: you are still liable for slander and spreading lies about someone or something.
The whole business about having to make money from it is absurd. One might argue that even a major newspaper that is losing money should then no longer be protected. What if I decide to publish a newsletter or newspaper, that I distribute for free? What if I charge one cent? Does this become black-and-white, one is journalism, one is not?
I think the history of this country is that many journalistic traditions began with someone owning a printing press and posting the output on a tree or structure somewhere.
Posted by: Greg P | August 2, 2007 7:29 PM
If this legislation ever passes, it probably will end up looking like a committee that was designed by a camel, or whatever the expression is. That is to say, it will not necessarily make sense.
I agree that the first journalists were "pamphleteers". I suppose it he final legislation the key factor will be, "is it a business?" Business is sacred, after all.
Personally, I would like to see "journalistic intent" as the deciding factor. Admittedly, that is harder to discern than whether or not money changes hands.
Posted by: Joseph j7uy5 | August 2, 2007 8:42 PM