The Indiana Law Blog flagged a column by Margaret Sullivan posing the question of “who is a journalist?” Sullivan notes the blurring of lines between journalists, columnists, and bloggers. It used to be that freedom of the press was for someone wealthy enough to own a press. Now everyone owns a press. One reason it matters, according to Sullivan, who is and is not a journalist:
There is a strong legal component to this discussion: Who will be covered by a federal shield law that would give legal protection to journalists who have promised confidentiality to their sources, if it ever comes to pass? Will it cover only established news organizations or those who get paid for news gathering? Or does it cover everyone with a Facebook page?
I’m not a journalist. Sometimes, arguably, I report news. More often, my blog is the functional equivalent of an opinion column. In any event, I’m a citizen who likes to talk about the issues of the day. That’s my privilege and, frankly, I regard it as something of a duty as well. But, I’m not a great fan of media shield laws. I don’t think we should be making a distinction about the sorts of expression that is and isn’t protected based on one’s profession. A citizen afflicting the comfortable with the truth would, in a perfect world, be afforded some protection from the blowback regardless of whether he or she is getting paid for it. But I don’t see why the likes of Judith Miller should be afforded more protection than the rest of us.
Sullivan goes on to discuss the notion of professional respect afforded individuals doing their work in an established newspaper being different than that afforded, say, bloggers. I think that has less to do with the proper definition of “journalist,” and more to do with whether the people doling out the respect in question are credible arbiters of respectability.
Good points. Related notion is the idea that journalists get a pass for criminal activity. A journalist can write about confidential information he/she gets, but that doesn’t empower a journalist to steal or facilitate the theft of the information in the first place.
I also think that there is probably a distinction between a shield for sources & a shield that protects criminal behavior.
I have done some research on this issue. The law is in flux. Indiana has a statutory media shield law, but it doesn’t protect non-traditional journalists. Pence while in Congress pushed a federal shield law for journalists, but it never made it through the Senate. Nonetheless, the courts impose shield protections through the First Amendment. Most court decisions apply those protections to “citizen journalists,” those who publish a blog regularly but may not get paid much if anything to do so. The case law is in its infancy though. I don’t think the issue has ever been addressed in the 7th Circuit, i.e. that is a shield for citizen journalists, that is bloggers.
The fact that many established news sources have gone to publishing stories that have not been confirmed, and the fact that most TV sources are now presented as op-ed pieces for entertainment rather than information makes one wonder about the validity of any type of shield measure for paid journalists.
I agree with your premise, Doug. The need to chase and prosecute “leakers” is frequently due to an unsettling truth getting out and the government attempting to shift the focus to the person blowing the whistle. Shouldn’t matter who provides the information. The reason for Shield Laws is that government doesn’t like it when someone reveals what they wish to remain concealed under whatever pretext they choose. This is true from City Hall to the Pentagon. When government applies its considerable coercive power on journalists, bloggers, etc., the most important question to ask is, “What have we learned?” Are we better off, for instance, because Daniel Ellsberg defied the government and disclosed the Pentagon Papers? How does the government look now for pursuing and harassing him?