Somewhat related to the previous post is big media’s near-unanimous desire for a national shield law to protect its journalists’ right to keep their anonymous sources confidential. Just as with campaign-finance regulation, big media wants one standard for themselves and another for independent journalists and bloggers. The congressional sponsor of the shield law now says it probably wouldn’t apply to bloggers:

Bloggers would “probably not” be considered journalists under the proposed federal shield law, the bill’s co-sponsor, U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.), told the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Monday afternoon.
Lugar emphasized, however, that debate is not yet closed on how to define a journalist under the proposed law.
“As to who is a reporter, this will be a subject of debate as this bill goes farther along,” he said in response to a question from Washington Post Deputy Managing Editor Milton Coleman. “Are bloggers journalists or some of the commercial businesses that you here would probably not consider real journalists? Probably not, but how do you determine who will be included in this bill?”

I’m sure the Washington Post editorial board would advocate some sort of balancing test like the ones it is so fond of with respect to campaign-finance laws. But as Mickey Kaus has convincingly demonstrated, there is no way to write a national shield law without defining “journalist,” and any government-drawn definition of “journalist” would be either too underinclusive to satisfy most bloggers or too broad to satisfy most prosecutors. Here’s what Mickey wrote:

And it is my purpose–I hereby announce–to eventually, potentially, disseminate every damn little piece of information I come across, in my memoirs if nowhere else, unless I’ve promised (in aid of the larger, American-Scene project, of course) to keep it off the record. There. Everything I know is my “work product” and the government can seize none of it. I recommend that all bloggers out there adopt and announce the same purpose. Then the government won’t be able to get your “work product” either. And all the people out there who aren’t bloggers should pay blogger.com the $20 bucks or so [actually, $0] it takes and become bloggers. Just for the privilege, as it were. Then the government won’t be able to get anything from anybody.

If you reason it out, it becomes clear that there’s no way to pass a shield law without creating some kind of elite guild of journalists. But for those who already belong to the elite guild — and who already enjoy an exemption from campaign-finance regulation — why not keep arguing for regulations that magnify your own voice?

See Also:

No National Shield Law