Interesting piece by Lucy Dalglish in the spring edition of “The News Media & the Law,” published quarterly by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Dalglish lays out the case for a “function test” courts have long used to define a journalist, and suggests the test could be adapted to delineate journalist bloggers from non-journalists.
Some people outside the news business are surprised when “traditional journalists” readily accept that some bloggers qualify as journalists. That seems obvious to me. Regardless of how someone distributes information, if they’re collecting and accurately reporting facts to the public, they’re serving a news-gathering function. Today, thanks to the Web, they no longer need a printing press to do so.
The definition of a journalist is increasingly important in an era when some members of the criminal justice system are intent on using subpoenas to coerce journalists into doing their jobs for them. Many bloggers lack the resources to fight subpoenas for notes and sources. Actually, many traditional media outlets lack those resources anymore. Extending First Amendment protections is an important battlefront on the horizon to stop the continuing spread of a dangerous practice that threatens to undermine the independence of news media - whether that’s a fully staffed newspaper or a single blogger working from her home.