I agree completely about the need for a standard. The law isn’t meant to be a shield for anyone to hide behind. I’d question if advertising should be the standard, though. I would think you could be a journalist without making direct revenue from your blog. Would the advertising standard eliminate those who indirectly earn money from their blog. Say a journalist blogs freely in order to secure a book deal or a position at a paper.

I am glad to see bloggers are covered by the new laws. The determination for who does and doesn’t get protection shouldn’t be the media in which they publish.

As discussed after the first bill, there has to be some standard to prevent people from simply throwing up a blog to publish information (which is only really of interest when it harmful and/or incriminatory) and receive automatic shielding.

The advertising standard (blogs must be supported by advertising—just like virtually all newspapers, magazines and other media, online and off-, already are) is in place to try to curb that.

This law has nothing to do with the freedom of the press or freedom of speech. No law will stop you from publishing anonymous comments from someone who didn’t wish for you to divulge his/her name.

Thirty-five years ago the Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of the press explicitly does not mean that you are exempt from ever divulging your sources. There is no Constitutional protection for keeping sources secret.

The point of both bills is that they DO include bloggers specifically. This is a huge step forward, since it would probably take years and rounds of court battles to make sure that the law extended to bloggers otherwise.

First what’s the definition of a journalist? What are the criteria that need to be met in order for a journalist to be granted protection from having to reveal a source? Is there anything in those criteria that require the published material to be in print as opposed to online?

If tomorrow the New York Times decided to stop publishing a printed paper and instead decided that all material would be online in the form of a blog. Would all the current journalists cease to be journalists because their words were now published on a blog?

Second it strikes me that the intent of the laws are meant to protect the source. The journalist gains protection so as to be able to protect their source. Why should it matter that a person needs to meet certain criteria in order to be able to protect sources and ultimately a free press and free speech?

I assume the criteria is in place so you can’t fall back on an anonymous source to publish a fabrication.

Bloggers come in many forms. Some are journalists and some aren’t. What I’m having a hard time seeing is why a blogger can’t meet the requirements to grant the protection. Not all would, but are any of the requirements granting protection tied to the media in which a story is published?