Shield law: Senators falter in defining ‘real reporters’

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is proposing a change to the Media Shield Law to exclude bloggers and “shoestring operation[s] with volunteers and writers who are not paid.” (The Global Dispatch, August 11, 2013, by Brandon Jones)

But Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that in a new technological era, there are lots of bloggers who don’t earn salaries but “…are people who write and do real journalism, in different ways than we’re used to. They should not be excluded from this bill.” (The Huffington Post, August 2, 2013, by Jack Mirkinson)

Morgan Weiland of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, August 9, 2013, argues that the senators are off-base in trying to define what a journalist is and suggests that they stick to defining the act of journalism in passing a law to allow reporters to protect sources.