Senators spar over definition of ‘journalist’ in seeking to protect them

"The bill defines a journalist as a person who has a "primary intent to investigate events and procure material" in order to inform the public by regularly gathering information through interviews and observations. The person also must intend to report on the news at the start of obtaining any protected information and must plan to publish that news."

It seems that there is some kind of existing agreement that not every blogger can be considered a journalist (eg. if someone discovers something in the course of his non-journalistic, professional duties, and chooses to publish it).

Why must journalists be in a special category at all? If I (a software engineer) choose to do something journalistic, why should that not count?

The whole difficulty the senators are having seems to be how to define "journalist" in such a way as to exclude people associated with WikiLeaks, which, whatever you think of it, is clearly a journalistic organization. Sounds like mission impossible.

There is some additional context that is important here: the bill is intended to create additional protections that aren't already in place, specifically a federal shield law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_laws_in_the_United_State.... Right now, journalists don't have the right to refuse to testify about their sources just as nobody has the right to refuse to testify about anything that isn't covered by the 5th amendment or certain common law privileges. The first amendment protects newspapers from censorship, but does not exempt journalists from the obligation to testify in court about their knowledge, an obligation shared by every other person. Shield laws create a special privilege as an additional layer of protection. Most states have a shield law, but the federal government does not. This bill is an attempt to create one.

As for why there is a need to define journalism or journalists, it's because shield laws cut across a very basic assumption in the legal system: a court can force someone to testify about nearly anything that is relevant. The exceptions are very deeply-rooted ones, like the 5th amendment right to refuse to testify against yourself, spousal privilege (the right to refuse to testify against a spouse), and attorney-client privilege.

It's important to define and cabin the bounds of the privilege, because otherwise anybody could invoke it. Imagine if business partners in a shady dealing could refuse to testify against each other by claiming that one was giving the other legal advice and therefore their conversations were protected by attorney client privilege. Real life isn't CSI, where there is always an orgy of physical evidence. The most basic tool of the court system is being able to get people to testify about what happened, in front of a jury of ordinary people who can judge the credibility of that testimony.

Ah yes, excellent way to control what gets reported.

Government creates a protected class for journalists. In the future journalists will refrain from reporting bad news about the government that provides them with said protections. Can we not see the idea that the government will pressure journalists to name their sources anyway with the threat of removing these "protections" before they step into court to answer questions?

Reading the quotes from these politicians is almost reading about bigotry or class warfare. This talk of "real reporters" and "special privileges" only intended for certain people based on government rules.

Want the support of the news media? Be the candidate that supports these "protections" for this special class of people. Don't dare be the candidate that wants to remove these "protections" for the good of the people who aren't special enough to be considered part of the protected class.

It's bad enough we have corporations mucking around in the news media, now we have to deal with government officials setting their hooks as well.

Oh heavens no! This might wind up covering Wikileaks! They are clearly not journalists, since all they do is publish material people give them after performing some review of that material. As we all know, real journalists do some other thing.

The First Amendment makes no definition so people feel the need to exclude people they don't like. Yet clearly the intent for a "free press" was that they could be anyone; otherwise the term free is meaningless.

Any country that has a legal definition of "journalist" that gives said journalists rights not granted to ordinary citizens has neither freedom of information nor freedom of speech.

This debate isn't so much about the definition of "journalist", but the question of how to keep the majority of the population silent and uninformed.

How much do you think a journalist license is going to cost and how many licenses will be offered every year?