Comments on: On confidential sources

By: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » A blogger behind bars

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » A blogger behind bars — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:56:20 +0000

[...] • But if the internet allows anyone to publish, then who should get such protection? In Congress and the courts, arguments are ensuing over whether bloggers are journalists. I say that’s the wrong argument. Journalism isn’t defined by who makes it (and, in fact, trying to do that is a dangerous attempt to certify journalists, giving authorities the means to decertify them). Journalism is an act. I say that if one journalist’s act of reporting is covered, then all must be. And the journalists are not necessarily opposed. At a symposium on this topic, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said: “The NY Times should be exceedingly humble about trying to decide who and who is not a journalist since we meet the test … and it feels like pulling up the ladder behind us.” Still, he wasn’t sure which bloggers should qualify. [...]

By: owl 1

owl 1 — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 15:10:51 +0000

I am curious JJ. Why would you participate in this kind of hit job?

I must admit, it’s the very best I have seen directed at Rove. It is also the very reason most of us do not think the Exempt Media deserve protection. I thought Pearlstine was an outrageous snitch before? Now he and the NYTs set it in concrete. But then again, unless I see it with my very eyes, I no longer believe one word I read in either’s papers. They all turned me about the same time I quit CNN.

I think the question is whether or not this conversation was ethical. Imagine that. I am questioning their ethics while they discuss ethics.

By: Mr.Murder

Mr.Murder — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 06:11:11 +0000

Thomas Paine was the first American blogger. The Federalists, Anti-Federalists were the many of the first anonymous bloggers.

None of these rank hacks can is worthy of mention or comparison alongside the forefathers.

Bunch of enablers is all that you amount to. When people see how many decades you played this game taking their hard earned treasure; and in complicit roles with those who bankrupted and undermined the full faith and credit of the public’s treasury; and (more importantly) its good will in the social contract of government, we’ll see a reckoning the likes of which tars and feathers share no simile.

Benedict Arnold’s niche has been drilled, for oil profits, and the accompanied teapot dome, desert storm, lying enablers should see the same verdict.

The people are getting pretty mad, few are the people to pad poll results with, and no electronic counting device can reshape the results.

You people are stenographers, not journalists. Your notes are of the decline of our land at the hands of people you help empower.

Hope to see you get yours in due process. You parse words within the ranks of treason. There is no precedent with which to compare you save one, and he was dealt with before we were of full capacity to hold court or have established longstanding accepted process.

By: JennyD

JennyD — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 20:16:39 +0000

Jeff, I tried to join the Education WRiters of America as a journalist. They wouldn’t allow me to because I don’t write for an institution and get paid by a media company. They only allowed me to join as an associate, along with the PR people and such. After looking at my blog and background, what do you think of that decision?

By: Robert Feinman

Robert Feinman — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 14:05:36 +0000

Perhaps one of the learned professors of journalism could look back to the early days of the broadsheet here and in England.
These were the original bloggers in my opinion.
How were they treated? Were they anonymous?
We all know about Peter Zenger. What other case law or common law precedents were established?

Tying pursuit of information to making money from the effort is the wrong way to go. There have been several detailed reports of the time line of the hurricane that must have required days of research to put together. Those doing this obviously don’t make a living from this.
The last time I remember seeing such close examination of government documents was from I.F. Stone.

Naturally big media wants to seem special in some fashion and will argue for this.