Feinstein Wants To Limit Who Can Be A Journalist

The most recent congressional threat to the free press in the United States comes from California Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In a proposed amendment to a media shield law being considered by Congress, Feinstein writes that only paid journalists should be given protections from prosecution for what they say or write. The language in her proposal is raising concerns from First Amendment advocates because it seems to leave out bloggers and other nontraditional forms of journalism that have proliferated in recent years thanks to the Internet.

“It rubs me the wrong way that the government thinks it should be in the business of determining who should be considered a journalist,” said Ken Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the Missouri School of Journalism.

But on the other hand, Bunting said, there is a great need for federal shield law in light of recent attempts by the U.S. Justice Department to force journalists to give up information about confidential sources.

The difficulty with writing any such law — this is the third time Congress has attempted to craft a federal shield law — is that any such law would have to set standards for who counts as a journalist or what qualifies as an “act of journalism.”

Read More at Liberty Crier . By Eric Boehm.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/feinstein-wants-to-limit-who-can-b...