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Editors Weblog- Analysis

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Bloggers as Journalists: what are the rules?

At the ‘New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension’ conference in Paris last week experts in Blogging and Citizen media discussed the evolution of this new media and press freedom dimensions. Here, Declan McCullagh of CNET looks at the discussion of the legal divisions and rules between journalists and bloggers.

Back when being a journalist might involve owning a large and unwieldy printing press or a government broadcasting license, it was relatively easy to figure out who was a member of the media and who wasn't.

The advent of online journalism in the mid-1990s has made that line far more hazy. And the dizzying growth in the number of bloggers over the last five years may erase it completely.

Are Web loggers journalists? The question touches on not just legal arguments, such as how elastic shield laws are or should be, but also includes cultural and political overtones. If, for instance, a blogger seeks to claim the privileges of being a journalist, should we expect him to follow the same general rules -- including contacting all sides to the story and verifying facts independently?

In the United States, courts have been grappling with this topic for a few years, with mixed results.

Bloggers seeking to cover the trial of senior White House aide Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, ran into a problem. The courtroom was small, and they realized it might be impossible to cover it without standing in line outside the building every day at 6 am.

Members of the traditional news media, on the other hand, routinely secure reserved seats. During the Microsoft antitrust trial that took place in the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. in 1998, journalists were handed special passes that gave them guaranteed courtroom seats by letting them skip to the front of the line.

Eventually, with some prodding from the Media Bloggers Association, the court in the Libby case agreed to grant bloggers guaranteed seats. Two have been reserved for them.

State shield laws and credentialing by government agencies have also become a flash point.

In 2005, Apple Inc. tried to use the courts to force independent news sites Think Secret, Apple Insider, and PowerPage to divulge their confidential sources. In legal filings, Apple claimed that the Web writers are not "legitimate members of the press" when revealing details about forthcoming products.

The company initially won. But in May 2006, a California appeals court ruled that communications between the product leaker and AppleInsider are protected by federal and state law.

The court said: "We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes 'legitimate journalism.'... Beyond casting aspersions on the legitimacy of petitioners' enterprise, Apple offers no cogent reason to conclude that they fall outside the shield law's protection."

Exact wording is important. California's shield law, like similar laws in at least 30 other states, was written long before the Internet became popular. It protects anyone currently or previously employed by "a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service."

The court said the intent of the legislature was to be generous with that definition--and concluded that "petitioners' Web sites are highly analogous to printed publications" and should enjoy the same legal protections against divulging their sources.

Exact wording matters, especially because other courts may not be as permissive. In 2004, a judge ruled that Alabama's shield law does not protect Sports Illustrated because the statute mentions only newspapers and broadcasters. Trying to squeeze a magazine into that definition, the court concluded, "strains the commonly understood meanings of those words."

One case in which a blogger lost is Josh Wolf, a video blogger and freelance journalist who was jailed on August 1, 2006 on contempt charges for refusing to turn over unpublished recordings. The recordings include footage of anti-G8 protesters in San Francisco.

As of February 20, 2007, Wolf remains in jail, a new U.S. record for a journalist refusing to divulge privileged material. He may remain in jail until the grand jury finishes in July 2007. Another journalist recently jailed for months was Vanessa Leggett, who refused to turn over her notes to a grand jury.

Because the federal government prosecuted Wolf, California's state shield law did not protect him. A federal shield law would. So far, however, efforts in the U.S. Congress to enact a shield law have been sluggish and subject to quibbling over definitions.

Politicians are in something of a quandary. They're being lobbied by professional news organizations and the American Bar Association to approve some kind of journalist's shield law while being urged by prosecutors to leave out bloggers. (After a federal appeals court enforced grand jury subpoenas against The New York Times and Time magazine, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case, news organizations decided to fix the law.)

The U.S. Department of Justice has criticized one leading shield proposal, saying it would let criminals pose as bloggers. A Republican senator, John Cornyn, seemed to agree. He said: "The relative anonymity afforded to bloggers, coupled with a certain lack of accountability, as they are not your traditional brick-and-mortar reporters who answer to an editor or publisher, also has the risk of creating a certain irresponsibility when it comes to accurately reporting information."

The newly-Democratic Congress has not convened hearings on the federal shield law so far.

Bloggers have also been swept up in debates over campaign finance laws, which seek to limit how political candidates may collect and spend money. News organizations have been historically exempt.

But when the U.S. Federal Election Commission was drafting rules as a result of a 2002 law, the regulations initially targeted bloggers. As the result of a public outcry, the final rules last year were not as onerous.

They do say, however, that paid Web advertising, including banner ads and sponsored links on search engines, will be regulated. They also say bloggers will enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech.

Quarrels over bloggers and regulation are not limited to the United States, of course. The Pakistan Communications Authority reportedly blocked access to blogger.com -- which hosts millions of sites -- on the grounds that a handful of blogs ostensibly were distributing false information. Saudi Arabia has been known to block blogger.com as well. In Italy, one blogger was fined over 13,000 euros for allowing readers to post uncensored and unmoderated comments, some of which were allegedly libelous.

by Declan McCullagh

'New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension' was organised by the World Association of Newspapers, The World Press Freedom Committee, UNESCO and the Knight Foundation.

Posted by Jodie Hopperton on February 20, 2007 at 09:48 AM

---

On February 27, 2007 at 04:25 PM, Gene Borio said :

>>Eventually, with some prodding from the Media Bloggers Association, the court in the Libby case agreed to grant bloggers guaranteed seats.

A clarification seems in order:

I had a blogging seat in the Press Room of that very courthouse, the Prettyman, in Sept., 2004, as a credentialed online journalist. The result: I blogged the 9-month trial of USA v. Philip Morris, et. al. (http://www.tobacco-on-trial.com). I was referenced in this capacity in the New York Times on Oct. 28, 2004.* (The Times has already issued a correction.**)

Similarly, I was credentialed to attend and report on the US Supreme Court session which heard the Williams v. Philip Morris arguments on Oct. 31, 2006.

Also similarly, I was granted access to the Press Rooms of the Rosen trial (NY Supreme Court, Mineola, LI, 2005) and the Schwab trial (US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY 2006).

I have always been treated with grace and respect by every courtroom officer I have dealt with, and have usually received my credentials within days, sometimes minutes. Not years. I had no need of an organization.

Thank you for your attention.

Best,

Gene Borio
195 Bleecker St. #11
New York, NY 10012
212-260-6825

Tobacco.org
www.tobacco.org
212-982-4645

Tobacco on Trial
www.tobaccoontrial.com
212-982-4645

* Corrections: For the Record
New York TImes
Published: February 17, 2007
A front-page article on Thursday about bloggers who are covering the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. included erroneous information from Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, about the coverage of federal trials by independent bloggers. Gene Borio, an antitobacco activist, received a credential to cover the trial of the federal government’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry in 2004 and did so; the Libby trial is not the first time independent bloggers have covered a federal trial. (Sheldon L. Snook, the court official who issued the credentials for both trials, said he was unaware that Mr. Borio was a blogger until after the credential was issued.)
--http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/pageoneplus/corrections.html

* * Big Tobacco Draws a Small but Dedicated Crowd to Trial
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: October 28, 2004

EXCERPT

Early in the trial, the courtroom was packed with spectators, most of them reporters and lawyers. Once the opening arguments ended, and the parade of witnesses began, the audience shrank to a smaller handful of lawyers, a reporter or two, Ms. Aronson and an Internet writer named Gene Borio, whose daily blog is available on http://www.tobaccoontrial.com.

--http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/politics/28tobacco.html

---

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Pemangku Balai
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