Comments on: So who should you call a journalist?

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh says a proposed federal shield law could harm folks who use the Internet to do journalism.

[eCurmudgeon]

A more basic question ...

... is what's a journalist? Is anyone who can whack on a keyboard and spout off a journalist if someone other than himself reads what he wrote?

Journalists like to call themselves professionals, but are they really? Perhaps it's time those who want to be called "journalists" be required to demonstrate professional competence.
Maybe anyone who wants to be a "journalist" should be required to pass board exams which test his knowledge of current events, writing skills, and, hopefully, spelling and grammar. Other, true professionals (doctors, engineers, architects, etc) have to pass similar competency exams before they can hang out their shingles, after all.

Having to take a competency exam in NO WAY infringes on anyone's first amendment rights. It doesn't stop you from spouting of on any subject near and dear to your heart. But it does tell the rest of the world that hey, this guy is a PROFESSIONAL. He's not just a Tom, Dick or Sally with a keyboard and too much time on their hands.

This way we can draw a distinction on who should be entitled to protection under shield laws and who shouldn't.

Let the flame wars begin.

[nicmart]

A better idea

Instead of testing journalists for their "knowledge of current
events," why don't we test Internet posters for their knowledge
of remote events.

We can start by asking if they know of the valient battles that
were waged over hundreds of years for the freedom to write and
to read without government hinderence. Those who didn't know
that one of the most important conflicts was over press
licensing, which government used to control the flow of
information, would fail the test.

I will concede that journalist licensing might have one positive
effect. Anyone who agreed to be licensed would be immediately
identified as a pathetic bootlicker whose writings were
worthless.

[SteveH]

re: a more basic question

Ray Reyes wrote "Having to take a competency exam in NO WAY infringes on anyone's first amendment rights. It doesn't stop you from spouting of on any subject near and dear to your heart."

that should be spouting off. Lol. Couldn't resist

[ebrandel]

Dear Author: Judith Miller

Judith Miller has shown herself to be nothing more than a self serving, sanctimonious idiot. Not only did she not need to spend a single night in jail she has taken a page from the Reagan handbook and "does not recall" much of anything.

[nicmart]

No special rights

Government has no business putting anyone in jail for refusing
to provide information. Reporters should get no special
protection; they should have the same rights as any other serf.

The dirty truth is that many reporters would like being accorded
special status, including being licensed. That would separate the
privileged journalists who went to journalism school and work
for prestige publications (and web sites) from their less
conformist competitors.

Most reporters, especially on a local level, are little more than
mouthpieces for government officials. There is virtually no
questioning of authority. TV and radio stations, and daily
newspapers are as integral to the power structure as are other
prominent businesses. They are not just cozy with the elite, they
are the elite. Reporters delight in rubbing shoulders with
prominent people and chafe at writing negatively about them.

The interesting "news" and free thinking analysis usually comes
from outsiders. These are people who have often not been to
journalism school and don't aspire to be considered
professionals. Mainstream reporters loathe these guerillas. They
don't play the game; they don't succumb the mind-numbing
conformity that is the life of a regular journalist.

Becoming a reporter is easy and requires no special skills, which
is why schools of journalism are a joke. But the schools are the
ticket into mainstream journalism, and the place to cultivate
conformity.

Free people shouldn't be jailed for refusing to share their
thoughts, and shouldn't be limited to information that is spoon-
fed by officially sanctioned reporters.

[Dachi]

Nice comment

Very well said.

[i_made_this]

omg!

I wasn't aware C|NET's esteemed staff writers are now referring to the total community of free-lance journalists as "muckrakers." yikes.

[fmcgowan]

Let me get this straight

If I report on what I see and hear around me and publish on the Internet, I am *not* a "journalist" even if I support meself by selling ads on my blog. If I work for the New York "Times" (or soem other "brick and mortar" news outlet), I am automatically a "journalist" even if I have to give back my Pulitzer prize as a Times writer did several years ago.

Do I remain a "journalist" even if the "Times" fires me for making it up as I go along as in the case of Jason Blair? Am I, as a bona fide "journalist" protected under the shield law if I *lie* about people? How could the target of my lies prove I lied rather than having the "confidential" source I claimed I had? Answer - he can't.

The "Times" reporter who spent jail time knew the rules of the game *before* she refused to discuss the conversations for which her source had already waived privilege.

This proposed law is nonsense and should be rejected out of hand.

However, I suspect that Congress will now protect the reporters that have universally praised the campaign finance "reform" that gave journalists a monopoly on political speech during the last 60 days of Federal campaigns.

[R. U. Sirius]

You have the picture

This is the corporate state sir, and you as a measly peon have no business challenging the NY Times, Fox News, or CNN.

If you have money, you get to participate. If you don't, tough luck and better luck next life. ;-)

[Bill Dautrive]

Easy distinction

If you have a 'blog' you are not a journalist. You are a hack who thinks people actually read your dreck.

blogging is a nonsense, BS term anyway.

[Jimmu411]

Brick and mortar is the key?

"...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,..."
So this would include tabloids printing stories about the people found alive on the Titanic eighty years after it sank, but exclude the guy who was blogging from Kuwait City during the Iraqi occupation?

[dnecessary1]

Digital Reporters and Photogs

This problem of definition has bothered me as soon as I recognize the internet's influence on information. Whether content is good or misleading, the internet is fast, efficient and reaches everyone now. As a former Federal employee, I never respected the press. However, as an American, I would defend freedom of the press. There has to be a definition created for legitimate and independant press protection under the constitution. So that the religious, political and vested interest groups cannot pretend to be legitimate news organizations. Otherwise our society will slip into the Wild-West anarchy of no rules.. Or are we there now?

[nicmart]

We have a definition: liberty

We do not need a "definition created for legitimate and
independent press protection under the constitution." All
Americans have an absolute right to freedom of expression.
These freedoms are not given by the government they are
"unalienable rights."

No group has to pretend to be anything or justify itself to the
government since every American is free to publish anything.
You call it anarchy, but the founders called it freedom, and it is
federal employees who represent the greatest threat to our
freedoms. They, and their state counterparts, are the ones who
would try to tell us what expression is acceptable, and which
groups are "legitimate news organizations."

Mr. Necessary's post is most useful. It shows the threat to
freedom against which we must always be vigilant. We couldn't
have had a posting that better reflects what the founders feared.

"This security of the freedom of the press requires that it should
be exempt not only from previous restraint by the Executive, as
in Great Britain, but from legislative restraint also; and this
exemption, to be effectual, must be an exemption not only from
the previous inspection of licensers, but from the subsequent
penalty of laws. -- James Madison, "Report on the Virginia
Resolutions"

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/
amendI_speechs24.html

"Licensers" are agents of the government who would decide
which of the press are "legitimate."

Three cheers for the anarchy of a free press!

[i_made_this]

we're already there now

When journalists can speak in terms of the legitimate press versus all other press
being "muckrakers", we know for a fact that
there must be some very real disconnect
between such journalists' self-perceptions
and reality.

Let's face it - noble though the work maybe, we writers are not professionals in the sense that attornies or medical doctors are, nor do we need any particularly stringent licensures.

A press pass because a person covers the White House beat for whatever national publication is not at all a professional license. It's what it says it is - a license for admittance so a person can cover a story.

For a writer to perceive this as being anything more than the little that it is, is for that writer to be successfully connived by the precise same parties he's being to report on objectively and independantly.

It is the oldest game in the abuse-the-journalist's book: make them feel so self-important for being honored to be able to report on you that you make it difficult for them to report anything critical, edgy or independant about your encounter with them.

When I first started getting published in the 1960's, my colleagues referred to this process as being "co-opt'ed." It was a negative term about those in our profession who would think of themselves as anything more than that which we all are - writers, just like everyone else on earth, but lucky enough to get paid for it.

[JimSlik]

What happened to equal protection?

While I admire the principle of protection here, I have to ask, what happened to equal protection under the law? A "registered" reporter is protected, but Joe Ordinary Citizen is not protected? Call me libertarian, but that doesn't fit the spirit of the constitution for me.

[markdoiron]

It Left Awhile Back

consider photojournalism: a newspaper is allowed to publish photos on the web that an individual might not be allowed to without appropriate releases.

mark d.

[DeusExMachina]

1st vs. 5th

"During my testimony, I invoked my First Amendment privileges
three times when refusing to answer questions"

Which priveleges were those?

[declan00]

1A privs

You can read the transcript of my testimony here:
http://www.mccullagh.org/subpoena/transcript.112501.html

Our motion to quash has the arguments:
http://mccullagh.org/subpoena/motion.032901.html

[DeusExMachina]

1st vs. 5th

"During my testimony, I invoked my First Amendment privileges
three times when refusing to answer questions"

Which privileges were those?

[R. U. Sirius]

They are becoming autocrats

Luger and Conryn and the lot of them are becoming autocrats. What part of this statement do these communists not understand:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Has the definition ever been clear?

"Who is a journalist? A generation ago, the answer usually was
clear."

Was it really? Journalism has ranged from handbills to big presses
for the entire history of this country. And the treatment of both
has been spotty at best.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Bloggers are NOT journalists

Not any more than some teenage girl keeping a diary. It's a Blog, not damn newspaper.

So because I keep a blog on my son's diaper contents (I don't, but I'd bet there's one out there) means I don't have to testify in court because i'm a "Journalist?"

Get real. I guess because I posted a comment here makes me a journalist too.

[markdoiron]

Let's Not Argue Semantics

okay, anyone should concede that blogging in and of itself does not make one a journalist. that's just plain dictionary defition and, by arguing this point every time it comes up, some folks are missing the real issue: should a person who blogs about something using a "secret" source be afforded the protections of this proposed law? we're not talking about dirty diapers. we're talking perhaps someone who blogs who learns from an employee that a nearby military facility is trying to hide the fact that they had a severe enviromental incident. or that a public company has put out the word to its employees to start shredding any materials related to their buying of stock in company xyz. or--real serious issues that affect people and communties. why should only newspapers and other "traditional" news media outlets be protected?

mark d.

[fireball74]

Define "journalist"

I would say that about 75% of the blogs I've read would not constitute as "news" in the traditional sense. These are normal people voicing their opinions and thoughts on a broad range of different subjects, without compensation. Most people considered "journalists" are nothing more than people hired by some rag... errr news agency to convey some sort of commentary on different subjects. The difference here is that a normal, everyday blogger is not being paid to put a "network slant" on a story, but putting their own opinions out there for anyone to read. In a way, I very much trust the opinion more of someone that doesn't get paid to report, but does it for the love and/or spite of the subject. Those, to me, are the people who are more trustworthy than anyone in mainstream media, and it is my opinion that they should be called "journalists."

[dam7ri]

Freedom has no boundaries

Imagine freedom of religion, only to Christians. Is that freedom?

When freedom of speech, the press, and to assemble peacably were put into the First Amendment, their purpose was to grant "everyone" the same rights, not those who the government approves of. These rights are to protect people with unpopular opinions, not the one with popular ones, because the unpopular opinions are the ones that need protection.

The reason that bloggers are coming under fire is because the government can't control them, nor should the government be allowed to.