You two might be interested in the ruling I linked in the first post. Each judge of the three judge panel wrote individual opinions affirming their unanimous decision and the first is Judge Sentelle (remember him? vilifed during the Ken Starr days).
Judge Sentelle ponders whether the privilege shouldn't cover bloggers in their pajamas, and if not, why not.
"Judge Sentelle ponders whether the privilege shouldn't cover bloggers in their pajamas, and if not, why not."
Very interesting. I don't see how one could, in a manner consistent with intellectual honesty and the First Amendment, give this "privilege" to one class of people and not another. What is the distinction between "reporters" and the rest of us? That they earn a living from journalism (cf. the DE statute cited by Sentelle)? What about reporters who are independently wealthy? What about reporters who are disfavored by the establishment media? The "reporter" criterion means the editors of the MSM get to choose who gets the privilege.
BTW, my earlier point about doctors and lawyers was that while they do get qualified privileges against testifying regarding client/patient communications, the fact that they are heavily regulated by the state allows society to constrain the privilege to (mostly) legitimate uses. Because of the First Amendment, the state CAN'T regulate reporters, so there would be no corresponding restraint on abuses of a reporter's "privilege."
The most offensive aspect of this whole situation, though, is the idea that a reporter (or anyone else) has greater rights under the First Amendment than any other citizen who takes it upon him/herself to communicate (i.e., report) information to the public (yes, that includes 'bloggers and even occasional posters to bulletin boards like FR). A similar arrogance can be found in the MSM's insistence on McCain-Feingold restrictions for everyone except themselves (a poisonous view that has most recently surfaced at the FEC).