Are bloggers journalists? This intriguing question turned out a weighty legal issue when a Cook County case in August last year spurred debate on whether bloggers must also be protected by the Shield law—a legal protection that prevent journalists from revealing confidential sources or even give up related materials used in a story.
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| Image credit: whiteflash.com |
What happened with TechnoBuffalo.com, a California-based website brought to court for publishing an image of a smartphone manual before it was even released in public, is only a precedent of other similar cases that cropped up in many parts of the country. The website maintained that the image was leaked by an anonymous tipster and they ought to be given shield law protection. However, the court had another opinion. Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Panter ruled that the website does not qualify as a "news medium" and its bloggers as "reporters." Four months later, Judge Marco Hernandez of Oregon declared that Crystal Cox, a blogger from Montana who sued for a defamation case, is also not a journalist. In June this year, another blogger from Washington State named Shelle Hale was sued for posting defamatory statements against a company’s products. Hale alleged that the information came from anonymous sources. She later lost the case; her demand for shield law protection was rejected.
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| Image credit: gracekeyworth.wordpress.com |
In view of the recent popularity of social media, shield law protection for bloggers remains among the complex legal issues in the country today. Until the day a legal framework is brought to differentiate traditional media work from blogging, this question remains: Are bloggers considered journalists?
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| Image credit: blog.careers.govt.nz |
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