Federal shield law is practically here...

Given this definition of "journalist", would the new law have helped Joshua Wolf? I'm not so sure.

Wolf served 226 days in prison at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, California, longer than any other journalist in U.S. history has served for protecting source material.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Wolf

 

Yep, slippery slope there....

 

Got any leftover T-shirts from the rally?

 

Considering that the judiciary has been "making the calls" that people seem to believe make this law necessary in the first place, I'm not as sanguine as Dave about how they'll operate in this area in the future. And Ragu, what you wrote is nice, but it doesn't have anything to do with the law under discussion, which presumes, essentially, to set up a means-test as to who is a journalist and who isn't. Anyone who gathers and disseminates news? Wunderbar. That would cover everyone from Maureen Dowd to BLOGS! Unfortunately, it isn't what the law says. It says that, to be covered, you have to "make a significant part of your living as a journalist." Jmac's point about Joshua Wolf is very well-taken.
And the Nixon argument in the context of the current situation is ill-founded. What we have now is a press that operates as a transmission belt for administration propaganda and administration slander, all disseminated anonymously, and then demands the protection of the law when called to account for what is quite obviously professional malpractice. That is what the Libby case -- and Judy Miller's jail time -- was all about.

 

But on balance: Is it not worth protecting legitimate journalists, at the occasional cost of accidentally protecting those who might not completely 'qualify'? If you're not going to create some perfect legislation, is it better to err on the side of protecting those who actually deserve it?

 

But that's not what the law does.
It defines, quite rigidly and by a bizarre standard, who "qualifies" and who doesn't.
Now, if you want to argue good-with-the-bad as regards whistleblowing vs. anonymous slander, that's a different topic. I may be misreading your post here, but I think you're talking about who qualifies under the law and not what kind of information does. Am I wrong?

 

I believe if we -- as an industry -- weren't struggling for survival, this topic would be the greatest facing us. Other than a couple of posts, I respect the civility of the discussion.
The Shield Law, whatever it's metamorphose -- will affect journalists long after we put down the keyboard.

 

I only pick up my keyboard to slam it against the wall when my computer goes down.

 

Likewise, I use it only to type "fuck me."

 

Why would the test be in the form of how much of your living you made via journalism?

Why wouldn't the test be whether you were in the act of gathering news for dissemination during the case at hand?

In other words, in order to invoke the shield law, you had to be doing whatever you were doing with the intention of compiling a story for publication.

That focuses on what people were actually doing and doesn't create a separate "class" of people.

 

As interesting as this discussion is, it's moot.
President Stupid's going to veto, and there's no chance of an override.