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Welcome To The Mainstream, Bloggers

When the history of the online media revolution is written, 2006 should merit special mention as a turning point for the blogosphere. This is the year, for better or for worse, when bloggers earned their first official media stripes.

Bloggers have considered themselves media almost since the beginning of their brief existence. They proudly claim the "citizen media" mantle and call their work by names like "grassroots journalism," "participatory journalism" and "public journalism." But self-proclamation doesn't carry the same weight as official recognition -- something bloggers have only just begun to win.

The first significant victory came in March, when the Federal Election Commission largely exempted blogs from campaign finance rules on the grounds that they are media. They applied to blogs the same exemption that governs newspapers, broadcasters and other traditional outlets.

The commission had hinted at such a decision in a November advisory opinion that said the costs incurred by one blog publisher "in covering or carrying news stories, commentary, or editorials on its Web sites are encompassed by the press exception."

The later rules, which the agency approved unanimously, recognized "the Internet as a unique and evolving mode of mass communication and political speech that is distinct from other media in a manner that warrants a restrained regulatory approach."

More recently, bloggers have scored wins in the state judicial and legislative branches, including a ruling for independent journalists who had been sued in California by Apple Computer.

The defendants in that case, Apple Insider and PowerPage, had posted information about a forthcoming product. The information was provided by anonymous company sources, and Apple argued that the publication of the information violated trade secrets. They wanted the blogs to disclose their sources.

The bloggers, defended by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said California's "shield law" for protecting journalistic sources applied to them. The state district court sided with Apple, but the appeals court overturned that ruling.

"We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes 'legitimate journalis[m],'" the court wrote on May 26. "The shield law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what petitioners did here." The court added that the Web postings were "conceptually indistinguishable from publishing a newspaper, and we see no theoretical basis for treating it differently."

Earlier that month, an advertising agency dropped a similar lawsuit against a blog named the Maine Web Report after bad publicity in the blogosphere. And in Connecticut, state legislators passed a shield law after rejecting an effort to exclude blog authors and people without journalism degrees.

All of those developments indicate the government's growing acceptance of grassroots publications as valid sources of information. "[A] solid body of law is being developed upholding the principles that citizen media deserves the same First Amendment protections as 'professional' journalists," Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos wrote after the Apple ruling.

There are still obstacles to the official recognition of the convergence between old and new media, however. The debate about shield laws is a case in point. Not all states have them, and while bills before Congress would let journalists protect their anonymous sources, not everyone is keen on the idea of giving such protection to citizens who think of themselves as journalists.

The latest Senate bill, S. 2831, has a convoluted, 82-word definition of "journalist" that seems designed to exclude bloggers, podcasters, video bloggers and other amateurs. It includes phrases like "salaried employee" and "professional medium."

At a Senate hearing on the issue last fall, furthermore, both a Justice Department official and legal expert warned against a federal shield law that would protect anyone who posts criminal or classified information on a blog.

The Los Angeles Times recently noted in an editorial that competing House language "is friendlier to bloggers and student journalists." But the paper said it is more important to get any kind of federal shield like the one bloggers used in California, even if independent media are not protected at first.

An even bigger hurdle will be getting credentials to cover government. Citizen journalists have been great assets during natural disasters and breaking news. They also have been granted temporary credentials for covering events like political conventions and even a congressional hearing. At least one enterprising blogger also covered his state's legislative session this year.

But convincing the people who control access to press galleries, press conferences and other official events to welcome citizen journalists into the fold will not be easy.

Mark Nickolas, a blogger in Kentucky was denied access to cover the state legislature until a Louisville newsweekly invited him to be a columnist. And in Texas, the Transportation Department refused credentials for an Internet newsletter called CorridorWatch to cover a forum.

At the federal level, few citizen journalists are knocking at the door to Congress, according to members of the credentialing committees for the print, periodical and broadcast galleries. But if they do come calling, bloggers, podcasters and other amateurs are likely to be turned away because of strict rules that limit media privileges to "bonafide working press."

"Anyone can put something on the Internet," said Susan Milligan of The Boston Globe and president of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, "but that doesn't make you a journalist."

Posted by Danny | 10:08 AM

Comments

Feel free to check out this blog on emerging federal and state public policy on RFID use. Might be of interest to your readers.

www.rfidlawblog.com

Doug

Doug Farry | 06.20.06 04:17 PM

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