Posted on 04/29/2010 2:16:27 PM PDT by Nachum
The Garden State has a shield law for journalists, meaning the government cannot force reporters or opinion writers to reveal their sources. There is nothing more vigorously defended among journalists than the right to keep secret one’s anonymous sources in service of “the public’s right to know.” The decades-long secret identity of “Deep Throat” in The Washington Post’s Watergate exposés is the standard of that journalistic principle.
But a New Jersey state appellate court last weekruled that a woman named Shellee Hale is not a “real” journalist, but just a blogger, so is not protected by the state’s shield law.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigjournalism.com ...
They’re to intelligent to be journalists.
So can a “journalist” be a blogger then?
I fail to see the difference. Where is the line that separates a blogger from the “press”??
Where is does the word "journalist" appear in the First Amendment?
Evidently it's there, and I just can't see it.
How many television reporters work for journals? If they don’t, they aren’t journalists.
Thank God the Constitution doesn’t say “freedom of journalism”, it says “freedom of the press”. And since you can print out a blog, it is much closer to the idea of “the press” than some TV anchorman who is more like a town crier.
Well... they shouldn’t be protecting criminals that post out of their “mama’s basement” doncha know ... LOL ... (and there are a lot of bloggers like that, too ...)
Heck! If they extend this “shield law” to anyone who posts anything on the Internet, they can consider every last single individual in the country and world a “journalist”, even my six-year old niece would classify ... :-)
What is the definition of a real journalist?
Someone who writes BS stories with made up facts that no-one reads?
Or someone that reports the truth and enjoys millions of readers?
You must not be a blogger...spell check.
ooops!
This means whatever some scumbag liberal activist judge wants it to mean at any given moment.
Hope this helps.
FRegards,
LH
The protection journalists are reciving is not Constitutional but statutory, and all of those so-called shield laws are nothing more than a license to lie, which journalists in the MSM have never needed a license or a season to do.
Anyway, I never remembered anything that stated there was a requirement for pay, or certification, or anything else to qualify as “press”.
But, New Jersey was the same state to allow Lautenberg on the ballot regardless of how the law was written, so this doesn't surprise me.
Pay no attention. History tells us otherwise about alternative media (underground radio, newsletters and periodicals). Today’s electronic resources are incredible and are having a great impact on the liars and propagandists (hmmmm, one and the same).
I guess, apparently, you have to be a scum-sucking, lying , elitist, bottom-dweller to qualify for the ‘journalist’ title. [not to be confused with scumsuckingbottomdweller connotation for ‘lawyer’]
You are a journalist if you write positive stories about the incumbent government, and as such, you are entitled to the protections of the shield law.
You are a blogger if you write unflattering and critical stories of the incumbent government, and consequently, you do not enjoy the protections of the shield law, primarily because you are really a filthy blogger, who probably likes the Tea Party, listens occasionally to Rush Limbaugh and thinks Keith Olberman may indeed be the son of Satan.
The ruling was only to help the Zero administration and the Demo-Fascists. If Bush was still in office I feel the ruling would’ve been to protect the blogger (with an eye to bloggers who would say bad things about the Prez and his admin).
By any reasonable definition of the term we have no journalists then
With the net, freedom of speech and the press are basically the same thing.
With the net, everybody is a potential journalist.
And that is so cool.
There is no such thing as journalism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.