(1) any education in journalism;
(2) any credentials or proof of any affiliation with any recognized news entity;
(3) proof of adherence to journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest;
(4) keeping notes of conversations and interviews conducted; (5) mutual understanding or agreement of confidentiality between the defendant and his/her sources;
(6) creation of an independent product rather than assembling writings and postings of others;
(7) contacting 'the other side' to get both sides of a story.
I don't buy any of these at all.
#1 and #2 say that you need a piece of paper to be a journalist. It's not true, as you can see from independent bloggers in eg Arab states covering the various revolutions.
#3 through 5 says that you need to have "standards" to be a journalist. Again there is no one to bell the cat. If your rush expose has numerous misspellings, do you lose your status? How closely must you check your facts? How much conflict of interest must you disclose? "Disclosure: the author loves Apple products." Similarly for keeping notes and being up front with your sources. If you don't do it we might call what you're doing "bad journalism". But it's not "not journalism".
#6 says that aggregators are not journalists. To a degree I think this is true; see below.
#7 says that unless you provide fair views or equal time, you're not a journalist. I put this together with #3 to #5.
As a thought exercise, see which of your favorite journalism organizations pass the filter on any given day.
Now that that's out of the way, what is journalism? It's broadcasting an eyewitness account, or original ideas derived from an eyewitness account, to the public. And that's it. This is why I might exclude aggregators who don't add independent content.
Freedom of the press means freedom to publish and be read without censorship. We are all publishing all the time. This doesn't mean that we need to somehow narrow the field of journalism to exclude the unwashed masses, as this judge's opinion strains to do. We might need to specify the definition of "journalistic activity" if we need to carve out special protections.
> #1 and #2 say that you need a piece of paper to be a journalist.
no, they say that if you have a piece of paper, you could be a journalist. if you have no paper, but meet other criteria, you could be a journalist.
> #3 through 5 says that you need to have "standards" to be a journalist
yup
> Again there is no one to bell the cat
judges bell cats. that's the whole point of the judicial system. i'm going to show you how a reasonable judge (hey, reasonable person) would apply this standard:
> If your rush expose has numerous misspellings, do you lose your status?
nope. that's nowhere in the standard.
> How closely must you check your facts?
depends on the facts. something controversial? probably pretty closely. something obvious? probably not all that close. the important thing is that this is something that you as an organization do. cox didn't do any at all. great, doesn't meet this standard.
> How much conflict of interest must you disclose? "Disclosure: the author loves Apple products."
that's not a conflict of interest.
> Similarly for keeping notes and being up front with your sources.
seriously? you're okay with people who don't keep notes and lie to their sources "journalists"? the issue is not whether you didn't keep notes that one time. cox never did. she's not a journalist.
> #7 says that unless you provide fair views or equal time
nope. it just says you have to contact the opposing party for their perspective. you don't have to devote half your article to them. you'll notice that fox news has democrats on for their pundits to yell at. of course, cox never contacted the plaintiff for his opinion.
> what is journalism? It's broadcasting an eyewitness account, or original ideas derived from an eyewitness account, to the public
no. that's tweeting. if you think people anybody who writes anything about the real world special protections not afforded to the rest of the population, you're insane. the issue at hand is whether or not certain people get special protections (particularly from subpoenas). look, if you tweet about a murder that you heard about from someone, the DA can subpoena you for your source and your testimony. if you tweet about it, that doesn't make you a journalist immune from divulging your sources.
> Freedom of the press means freedom to publish and be read without censorship.
yup. there's no first amendment issue here! cox made defamatory statements; those are not neither covered under shield laws nor the first amendment!
> doesn't mean that we need to somehow narrow the field of journalism to exclude the unwashed masses
publishing and journalism are not the same! we provide journalists with special protections because they provide us (the public) with something valuable (journalism). we pass laws giving them special treatment (we're not allowed to subpoena their sources), and as such, we should definitely expect certain standards from them. i don't think the bar for journalism should be super high, but that doesn't not make everyone a journalist.
> We might need to specify the definition of "journalistic activity" if we need to carve out special protections.
that's the whole point. shield laws apply only to journalists. that's the question at hand.
I don't buy any of these at all.
#1 and #2 say that you need a piece of paper to be a journalist. It's not true, as you can see from independent bloggers in eg Arab states covering the various revolutions.
#3 through 5 says that you need to have "standards" to be a journalist. Again there is no one to bell the cat. If your rush expose has numerous misspellings, do you lose your status? How closely must you check your facts? How much conflict of interest must you disclose? "Disclosure: the author loves Apple products." Similarly for keeping notes and being up front with your sources. If you don't do it we might call what you're doing "bad journalism". But it's not "not journalism".
#6 says that aggregators are not journalists. To a degree I think this is true; see below.
#7 says that unless you provide fair views or equal time, you're not a journalist. I put this together with #3 to #5.
As a thought exercise, see which of your favorite journalism organizations pass the filter on any given day.
Now that that's out of the way, what is journalism? It's broadcasting an eyewitness account, or original ideas derived from an eyewitness account, to the public. And that's it. This is why I might exclude aggregators who don't add independent content.
Freedom of the press means freedom to publish and be read without censorship. We are all publishing all the time. This doesn't mean that we need to somehow narrow the field of journalism to exclude the unwashed masses, as this judge's opinion strains to do. We might need to specify the definition of "journalistic activity" if we need to carve out special protections.