Slashdot Mirror
Is Blogging Journalism?
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the judge's refusal to extend journalist protections to Think Secret in its case against Apple, the Net is abuzz with commentaries coming to its defense. MacInTouch points to three of them, from CNET's Declan McCullagh, MP3 Newswire's Richard Menta and grassroots journalism pundit Dan Gillmor. All agree that Apple went too far with its case and question the court's decision that Web journalists don't count."
Considering how much research that some people put into their blogs I would definately consider it a form of journalism.
See Professor Susan Crawford's piece on this on her blog where she argues the outcome (if not the reasoning) of the Judge's ruling was correct... http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/ 3/6/404732.html
Blogging is editorializing.
If Fox News is considered journalism in this day and age, then sure, why the hell not?!
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Freedom of speech protections apply to ALL individuals. Not just a selected profession.
(Now individuals getting into a high government press conference... that's different...)
Blogging is just a medium through which to deliver content. Like any kind of writing, it can be good, or it can be crap.
one word:
"NO"
it is journaling and commentary.
about the same thing as wasting your time reading the letters to the editor.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Caveat: ThinkSecret is not a blog.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
What with journalistic ethics taking a number of hits over the past few years (Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, "Jeff Gannon", et al) - and, Mac rumor "blogs" aside, the mainstream media is beginning to pay heed to bloggers at all levels of the news cycle. Just recently Garrett Graf, who runs the political blog FishbowlDC, was granted access to the White House Press Briefing - the same thing Guckert/Gannon was maligned for attending without any "real" credentials.
Graf is the former editor of the Harvard Crimson, but he's not a journalist in the traditional sense, and he represents the first "legit" blogger allowed into the press gaggle. I'd say that's a very positive sign.
Hard to imagine why that would be the case.
When everything that happens to be written becomes journalism, then the word journalism ceases to mean anything.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Asking that question would be akin to asking "Are newspapers journalism"?
I don't consider weekly world news with their bat boy news to be journalism. I don't consider mindy the teenager complaining about her miserable life journalism.
Blogging is, nevertheless, a step forward for freedom of the press.
Cheers,
Adolfo
So the real question:
Isn't everyone protected by the First Amendment? If so, should everyone ALSO be protected as journalists?
Why not?
Why is my speech and my actions less protected than someone who works for CBS?
I write on Slashdot; I write on LiveJournal; I write on my own set of forums and a private website. Why do journalists, but not citizens, get protected through journalistic shield laws?
GPL Deconstructed
Journalism is irrespective of any medium -- and that includes blogs.
A journalist is a journalist whether they spread they spread their work through newspapers, magazines, trade publications, pamphlets, zines, radio, television, web sites, blogs or even as town crier.
The medium is not the message.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
But that doesn't mean that its the same as "big media", or that it demands the same consideration of conventional news services.
Thats why some in conventional news media are bothered by blogging, they do their thing and they are playing by their own rules outside of the "corporate news sandbox". And yet they still have a ever growing audience that prefers them to the ol' standbys.
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
Pardon my ignorance, but in traditional journalism, is the confedentiality of a source legally protected if the source is demonstrably breaking the law?
As I understand it, Apple wanted the name of the source because whoever the source was, he or she was breaking trade secret or NDA laws. Would this (outlaw) source's confidentiality normally have been in another medium?
Stupid like a fox!
the judge's refusal to extend journalist protections to Think Secret
Uh... last I checked, US courts do not recognize the notion that a journalist has the right to refuse to disclose a confidential source. More than one reporter has been thrown in jail for contempt of court over this. So, I'm not real clear here how Think Secret's treatment is any different than what a normal journalist would get?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
This is how Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines it:
1 a : the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media b : the public press c : an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium
2 a : writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine b : writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation c : writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest
According to 'c' we are...
fuvoo: watch something
According to CNN , the White House just gave a blogger, Garrett M. Graff (of Fishbowl DC) a press pass. If blogging doesn't count as journalism, it will soon.
The question is not "Is blogging Journalism".
The question is "Is this an instance in which the Shield Law(s) was meant to be applied".
Blogging as journalism is debatable. But it is protected under the first amendment. That part can not be in question. However, protecting sources that reveal confidential information, when there is no public (necessity/safety/whatever word you want in here) as in the case of the Pentagon Papers, Whistleblowing or otherthings, is what this case was really about.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
A blog is an online journal. A journalist is "one who keeps/writes a journal". So how is a TV Anchor more of a "journalist" than a blogger?
8 47784
The spirit of the law is to let the truth get out without compromising the truth-teller's safety / privacy. I think using it to provide insider info that may break NDA's about upcoming products is unfortunate, but we must defend it or else real whistleblowers, such as someone ratting out a pharmaceutical cover-up, will be afraid to tell their story, and the public will get hurt.
I don't agree with the KKK, for an extreme example, but I do agree with their right to speak their minds; and the same goes for thinksecret.com: I think it's sneaky to sell apple's private product info (paid informants, or just ads on the site) and then protect the transaction under the cover of journalism, but to protect other bloggers conveying more vital issues, we must also protect thinksecret.
Similar points raised in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141361&cid=11
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Libel: 1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation. 2. The act of presenting such material to the public.
Slander: 1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation. 2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.
So many people write things that are blatantly false and damaging, and get away with it without any punative action because they are blogs or forums. There should be some major penalty for putting completely false information out there - and this holds for "old" media companies too.
Even journalism isn't journalism anymore!
Journalism used to mean researched stories, informing the reader. It seems that 99% of blog content is heresay. And professional journalists are joining the party, reducing their stories to simple "he said, she said" puff pieces.
Journalists receive special protection in exchange for informing and educating society. If they don't uphold their side of the deal, I don't see why they should retain special privileges.
It doesn't matter!!
In the case cited in the article it is not a question of whether or not they were journalists and thereby covered by shield laws. It is a matter of releasing trade secrets which could damage a company, which is not covered by shield laws.
Everyone does have the same right to say the same thing no matter what their profession, within laws that supersede the first amendment, such as trade secret protection laws.
It doesn't matter who you are, or what you are doing if it's against the relevant law, it's against the law.
-Mikey P
How is this different from licencing journalists. Remember, requiring licences means licences can be denied by a branch of the goverment. Is this what Ben Franklin would want, or do these modern judges think they are wiser than the founding fathers.
That's a facetious question - of course they do.
And this judge has, by his ruling, denied a journalist license to defendant.
Is Slashdot journalism?
Sure it is, as long as you say what we want you to.
There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
Qualitative measures are used all of the time. Simply because a line is gray doesn't mean we do not try to apply a certain amount of common sense to the situation. Take for example "Good Samaritan" laws that protect me if I choose to give CPR to a dying person. If I crack a rib, that law protects me. Even if I do a crappy job of it. Now lets say i decide to jump up and down on the man's chest to try to start the heart. Well, the law no longer protects me as my actions were no longer 'reasonable'. Where is the line between reasonable and unreasonable? Hard to say. But the ideas of 'reasonable' and 'prudent' are all throughout our law. They have to be. So, we do have to make some distinction between who is a journalist and who is not. My one-entry blog certainly does not merit journalistic status. A regular Business Week columnist does. Somewhere in-between? Let the law figure it out.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
No, lots and lots and lots of stuff in the New York Times is not important to me. Most of it isn't. I don't care what's new in the Arts world. I don't read the Business section, etc, etc. But I bet the reports who write the articles for those bits did their research and make sure that what they are publishing is correct as far as they can tell from their research. That's what makes it journalism. The professionalism. Not whether I find that bit important or not.
I am a lawyer - although this is not in my area of concentration. This is not a First Amendment case. No governmental body if attempting to silence the press here. It's a case about the privilege to not testify to confidential information. As a society we have carved out some communication that are privileged and need not (as a rule) be disclosed in court proceedings. PRIVATE communications between you and your Lawyer, Doctor, Priest are as a rule privileged. We privileged them because we want to encourage open, honest communications with these people - not chilled by the fear of compelled disclosure. Some states - CA among them - also extend limited privilege to reporters. If as a society we think it's important to encourage open honest - and importantly verifiable - communications with reporters - we need to extend this privilege to them. If you think so - write your congressman. Also - since most litigation takes place in state courts - write your state legislators and ask them.
I think a major factor that determines journalism is accountability.
Blogs just aren't as accountable as a major commercial entity like a magazine or newspaper. Just look at Slashdot. It posts flat-out inaccurate and wrong information all the time as front page news articles. But it's not really news, and the editors aren't journalists. They're just posting user-submitted blocks of text with links to other sites, often without vetting the information or even seeing if it was posted already.
If Slashdot was a print magazine, I guarantee facts would get checked a lot more often. But the Internet is seen as a responsibility-less place with no rules, so the attitude is much more lax.
Drudge posts blaring headlines and then edits them 30 minutes later when they turn out to be wrong. He posted that the Oscars had come "back from the dead" in ratings, and then an hour later I checked the site to see a giant headline claiming that ratings had been the lowest in five years. There was no mention of the change.
It's so easy to set up a webserver and post anything. That's why they are not considered journalists. When you're employed by a real news organization, there is a level of accountability and standards that must be met, or you will be fired. That accountability to someone isn't there when you're in your underwear and running your own server to post what you want.
Why yes, it's GONZO Journalism!@!
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Just ask Robert Novak. He outed a CIA operative and is he being forced to betray the confidentiality of his sources? No.
While thinking philosophically, we see problems in places where there are none. -Wittgenstein
More to the point, is what the major networks pumping out as news really journalism? Think about that. ;)
but to say "web journalists don't count" also goes too far. It implies that bloggers are all journalists. The blog in question clearly was journalisitic but 99% of the pap on *.blogspot.com is porn, commercials, foaming at the mouth on the politcal and relgious right and mostly self absorbed diarizing...are we protecting that? The so-called blogosphere has way more defamatory, inflamatory, libelous and privacy invading contetent than any print media would get away with and I include buttwipe like the National Enquirer in that. Most of them are read by nearly noone but the authors so there is no big stink... are we protecting that?
I agree with those who think the court doesn't get it because I think that blogging CAN BE simply a lowest-cost-of-entry publishing format, a minor technical distinction exists between that and conventional news media. The caution I suggest is that if we act as if blogging automatically IS journalism then we provide gold settings for all the droppings just becuase they get delivered with the same technology as the diamonds. By intent and content, most blogs don't rate any more protection than a post card, an open piece of first class mail tacked up in public place.
How to make a better distinction between "journalism" and electronic flatulence? The courts should consider [a]who reads it and [b]who writes it or what authority is ascribed to the information. The tricky parts would then just boil down to cases where the author always said "this is just a rumor" but the info was always right on the money.
Oh, and the other 1%? I think I bookmarked all 2000 of them!
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Let's think clearly and logically for just a moment here. I see a lot of argument about the dictionary meaning of "journalism" and whether or not blogs qualify. I don't want to take a position on that. But I do want to take the position that whatever your opinion is about the journalistic purpose or lack thereof with regards to bloggers or a particular blog, it kind of doesn't matter with respect to this story.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that Judges are there to make rulings on matters of law, not to assign value judgements about the worth or societal value or accuracy of a given practice. This isn't a ruling that ThinkSecret isn't "real journalism" or that it's creator isn't a journalist (whatever that means). It's just a legal judgement about whether or not the practices he employs qualify him for protection by certain laws.
I'll even go so far as to make a speculation about what laws were relevant. I'd imagine that TS argued that he could not be compelled to disclose the identity of a source who preferred to remain anonymous because journalists get to protect their sources. I also imagine that the judge found from the facts presented (or lack thereof) that the standard practices which allow for that kind of protection were not generally followed on TS. For example, to shield sources in this way, a journalist usually has to show both that he corroborated this particular piece of info in some way and that it was the regular practice of his outlet so to do. TS clearly doesn't operate that way...which isn't bad or wrong in my opinion, but it would be an abuse of these laws to let them apply in the TS scenario.
Let's not make this about some kind of slam on the blog community. Judges exist to know the rules and to apply them fairly. TS took a shot at interpreting the rules one way, and the judge said no. Don't get distracted by the rhetoric.
adam b.
NDAs have been upheld by the courts. Look for the case of Elizabeth Coady, who signed a lifetime NDA when she signed on to work for Harpo, Inc, the company that Oprah Winfrey uses to run her show. She lost both at the trial and appellate levels on that count, and chose not to press on to the Supreme Court, so the verdict and opinion stand as precedent.
Yes, you can sign away your First Amendment rights in certain cases, and yes, NDAs are generally valid.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Something I rarely see explored in the blogs VS 'regular media' debate is the role that the shelf life and interactivity of stories both play.
The usual media outlets are fire and forget stream without any chance critique and within the next 4-24 hours will be another barage.
News on blogs can last a very long time, propogate, be critiqued, and draw lots of fans, foes, and wholy other points of view. The story might be complete bunk but looking at it as a whole, valuable things can be found.
I haven't really seen the issue of the longevity of stories brought up in the whole debate but I think it's near the heart of the argument.
Do I think bloggers are journalists? You bet- and their quality varies just like the others.
In the middle of the debate there seems to be lots of allegations from mainstream media talking about journalistic integrity, bloggers not having the resources to truly produce news,lack of 'real editors' and rewriting stories without much disgression. I'd love to see mainstream news without access to things like the AP, lexis/nexis, or other news services for a month.
I'd also love to see the news show joe public how they do make the news and what truly differenciates their news from a bloggers. All I've really seen lately is a lot of fire and forget allegations.
Firefox &
Perhaps there are some "real journalists out there who do actually take pride in their craft, who do make an effort to report the facts as objectively as possible" , the number of cases where I've been able to check personally is pretty small. But in NONE of the case where I've been able to check has a newpaper or TV station even TRIED to do a decent job of objective reporting. Everything is processed for entertainment value, usually, but not entirely, by selection to such an extent that the original occurance is only recognizable if you know and witnessed what actually happened. And then it can be difficult.
I saw a city go up in flames. Then the next day I drove over there and found that a couple of blocks had been destroyed. I saw a city go up in flames. Then a week later I returned and saw acre on acre of devastation (with pockets untouched, appearantly arbitrarily).
From the news I couldn't tell which occurance was more drastic. They always attempt for maximal impact, with the result that one can't have any sense of porportion. Equally, if they decide not to cover something, it doesn't matter how large it is, it's just ignored.
I trust bloggers MORE than I trust journalists. They don't hide their biases as much, and they don't have a professional interest in distorting everything for maximal entertainment value. And they express a true variety of viewpoints. (The US press is over 90% owned by 7 corporations [perhaps 5...I don't keep track, and there are mergers]. People working in corporations don't say anything publically that they believe will upset their bosses, or allow their subordinates to do so.)
People deride Slashdot, but I trust it more as a source of news than I do the local papers. It's true that it doesn't cover a wide variety of topics, and it's true that there are trolls and astroturfers. But there's lots of other people, too, and things that people want to say aren't censored (except in ways peculiar to Slashdot, and which don't reflect the biases of the external world).
Blogs partake of the essence of Slashdot. (Well, the popular ones do.) If one person lies, someone else will contradict them. The ensuing discussion will probably reveal who is lying, or provide things I can check. Usually it turns out that the people just consider different things important, and they're arguing about their tastes. And *that's* important to find out also.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I never said there could never be a public interest in exposing something Apple or Microsoft were doing. This case doesn't set the precedent that there will never be a public interest in reporting on illegal activity using a blog. If they were breaking antritrust laws, or doing something else illegal, the shield laws for journalists should apply to bloggers just as much as newspapers.
But let's not kid ourselves. I like reading Think Secret and the rest of the rumor sites. It's fun and I don't think it hurts anybody. But Apple is totally within their rights in figuring out who violated their NDA, and firing them. Apple isn't trying to cover up a crime or unethical behavior -- they announced everything in the ThinkSecret reports at a conference. The laws that journalists use to keep sources confidential are completely inapplicable.
-Esme
and
Judging by the number of new blogs that I see on a daily basis we can assume that the total number of blogs in existence approaches infinity.
Nearly every one of these blogs is either some clod's diary of the daily mundane or a rant session not meant as anything other than...well a rant.
For those blogs that intend to be journalistic only a handful exercise due diligence to ensure the facts presented are based on reality. More often than not, many of these blogs are rants disguised as news or political commentary. Nothing journalistic about them.
This being the case we can safely assume there are only a finite number of blogs that can actually be considered journalistic in nature.
Since a finite number divided by an infinite number is essentially 0 we can say with certainty the blogging is indeed not journalism
{I would be amiss for not giving thanks to Douglas for what he has taught me about mathematical reasoning}
~CrnbrdEater
It's more likely that certain bloggers are members of the class Journalist, but many are not.
Thus, even though many journalists aren't bloggers, and many bloggers aren't journalists, there are some journalists who are bloggers - but may or may not practice journalism in their blogs, and some bloggers who may practice journalism in their blogs.
For example, let's say that I had been a journalist at one time (true, in my days at SFU and Capilano College), but never maintained a blog then (even though I was on the Net). Just because I posted some stuff on an online journal and contributed news to a friend's blog, doens't mean that I'm a journalist now. More of a news distributor, or perhaps a columnist or opinion writer, really. But not entitled to be considered an active journalist.
This doesn't preclude some bloggers from being journalists in every sense of the word - there is no size requirement on the number of staff for a media outlet. But professionalism is something sorely lacking, even if one had a journalism degree.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I would just like evreyone to step back and think for just a moment. Are we saying / fighting this because it would get ThinkSecret out of a jam or because we want to change the way blogs are seen from a guberment perspective.
We should first evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and make sure those support the free speach that we have grown to love.
In short lets not start fighting until we know what we are fighting for.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Blogging is far too broad a term to use with precision. It simply means the act of publishing something -- anything -- on a blog.
Likewise, writing is far too broad a term to use with precision. Most of what is written and published is not journalism, regardless of where it is published.
Then there's this: all reporters are journalists, but not all journalists are reporters.
Here's the point: journalism and reporting are types of behavior, rather well-defined, that merit protection. It is irrelevant where the product of that behavior -- the writing -- is published. If it happens to be published in a blog, then it merits protection.
But, simply writing for a blog doesn't, by itself, merit protection, anymore than writing for a newspaper, by itself, merits protection.
That means that if the ThinkSecret guy engaged in something we'd recognize as reporting to get that sotry, then the court's decision should apply to any and all journalists, whether they publish in a blog or not.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Blogging isn't journalism, but todays journalism isn't "JOURNALISM" either.
Most blogs however are poorly written, poorly researched and just platforms for people to voice their opinions - definitely not journalism by any stretch of the imagination.
In regards to the Apple/thinksecret case - the blogger wasn't acting as a journalist...you can't violate an NDA and then try to hide behind the shield of being a journalist. He signed the NDA first, then released the information to the public...he may not have been editorializing, but he was violating a contract w/Apple that had to be respected first, even if that infringed on his 1st amendment rights and his desire to be a journalist.
Yeah, it sucks he got nailed - but you can't blame Apple for defending it's NDAs and the gross violation of their trust with the particular employee responsible. You can bet that any company in a similar situation would do exactly the same thing, otherwise the NDAs have no weight and are pointless. Given the current environment with patents and the laws surrounding them, it's important that if someone actually innovates, they be given an opportunity to actually make something of those innovations. In truth, this didn't hurt Apple that much, but they at least need to set the record straight in regards to what they'll tolerate and what they will prosecute - the next time someone pulls something like this, it could be much more costly to them.
As an aside, is Taco trying to figure out what to put on his Resume(journalist??)?? I keed!
Like the recent Vioxx scandal. That was all protected under NDA. There were concerns that Vioxx might increase heart attacks but the initial research was statistically inconclusive and so the results were buried. For several years.
In this case, the object of the contract is still lawful (there wasn't CONCLUSIVE evidence) but a corporate leak at this point might've saved hundreds of lives.
Or how about Windows virus announcements? You could have a security issue that Microsoft wants to keep buried. But it's only a theoretical issue not seen in the wild and Microsoft's going to patch it in the next service pack release... Is it a violation of NDA to leak that info?
Like someone else on here posted. How do you know you have a protected violation of the NDA until after you've violated the NDA and other people have decided that for you? (and maybe not in your favor)
A: No.
It's the delusion that the world is remotely interested in what you had for breakfast this morning.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I see a lot of folks arguing about the definition of journalism, and whether or not writing a blog qualifies. Well, my dictionary says that journalism is:
"The periodical collection and publication of current news"
Unless the court has a different definition, then blogging is journalism. There is nothing that I can see from the dictionary definition that would exempt it.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The preservation of freedom of the press requires a very open view of what is considered "the press". To define it too narrowly opens the door to a tremendous loss of freedoms that the constitution is designed to protect.
Exactly.
The constitutional protection of the press is to prevent suppression of viewpoints and information by the government. What the judge was ruling on is whether the state-level journalist protection law applied to this blog. Letting that government pick and chose what is press - in order to remove protections from those it declares "non-press" - is a very slippery slope.
Amount of research going into a story is immaterial. (Can you imagine this judge claiming CBS' _60 Minutes_ is not "Press" because of its inadequate research on some of their stories?) Besides: By this measure MacInTouch would qualify as Press.
The distribution medium is immaterial. (Can you imagine this judge declaring CBS News - TV, Radio, or their web site - is not "Press" because it's not printed on paper?)
Even if you use some measure of whether they're reporting news MacInTouch is pretty clearly "Press". They're publicly reporting new information of interest to a broad readership of more-or-less ordinary people, many of whom are using it to make consumer decisions about their next computer purchase. (Can you imagine this judge declaring, say, the Detroit Free Press to not be "Press" if it reports leaked information about GM's next model year cars?)
IMHO the judge erred, and I suspect (and hope) that he will be reversed on appeal - if he doesn't change his mind before that.
I can see how he might be trying to head off a situation where every cracker, corporate espionage operator, and extortionist puts up a web site in order to claim protection under the journalist shield laws. But IMHO such things should be easy to distinguish. Current shield laws don't protect the mainstream press in such a situation. So there's no need to declare a blog to be non-press to avoid the problem.
This thing should be decided solely on the same criteria that would be used if MacInTouch was a print journal.
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