Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
Are bloggers journalists? More importantly, should bloggers receive the same privileges the government bestows upon “professional” journalists including, in most states, protection from the forced disclosure of confidential sources of information by way of journalist shield laws?
These are some of the questions congress has been considering over the last month as part of the “Free Flow of Information Act of 2007.” As The BRAD BLOG often relies on confidential and whistleblower sources we have been tracking the issue closely.
With this backdrop, The BRAD BLOG jumped at the opportunity to interview the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject, D.C. constitutional law attorney Scott Gant. Released in June, We’re All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Law in the Internet Age, has enjoyed favorable reviews and led to appearances by Gant on C-Span’s BookTV and The McLaughlin Group, where the host commented that the book was “A great read, an easy read and it breaks new ground, quite groundbreaking.”
Part 1 (7:32) of our interview above covers all things related to the shield law. Part 2 (8:30) of the interview above concentrates on access privileges and other benefits that journalists receive from the government that may be important to bloggers. Both follow below…
I’d be interested to learn the explanations behind the argument that a broad shield law might somehow restrict the government’s ability to enforce our laws. I’m willing to consider that argument, but just saying that it limits law enforcement is NOT an argument.
It IS true, and easy to explain, that the government increasingly exerts more control over our press, and therefore over journalists who work for conventional print, radio, and TV news sources, indirectly through corporate lobbying, lobbying that does not come only from media corporations. For example, it benefits ExxonMobil if it can influence, through providing advertising revenue as well as in other ways, large city newspaper and TV coverage of the oil/energy industry. To think that industry giants do NOT influence media coverage of them, given the amount of money it spends on advertising and lobbying, is simply naive.
So it’s very easy to explain how and why RESTRICTING shield laws might benefit industry and the government’s ability to exert control over our citizens (not the same thing as enforcing laws), keep corporate profits high, and prevent further social legislation intended to benefit citizens at the expense of corporate profits, especially now that we are beginning to see how grassroots citizen activist movements can come about and gain significant momentum as a direct result of the inexpensive, rapid communication venue provided by the internet.