Posted on 12/10/2011 3:42:19 AM PST by marktwain
“Montana blogger is not journalist,” Jeff Barnard of the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernández ruled that “investigative blogger” Crystal L. Cox “was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets.”
Per Alex Dobuzinskis of Reuters:
Hernandez found Cox failed to present evidence that she had any media credentials or affiliation with a “recognized news entity,” or that she had checked her facts or tried to contact the other side to “get both sides of the story.”
“Montana blogger is not journalist,” Jeff Barnard of the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernández ruled that “investigative blogger” Crystal L. Cox “was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets.”
Per Alex Dobuzinskis of Reuters:
Hernandez found Cox failed to present evidence that she had any media credentials or affiliation with a “recognized news entity,” or that she had checked her facts or tried to contact the other side to “get both sides of the story.”
“Most newspapers and media companies do not subject reader comments posted online to the same journalistic standards they apply to their own reporters,” he writes.
In terms of “journalistic standards,” one need only look at the “Authorized Journalist” archives compiled at Gun Rights Examiner and at The War on Guns blog to note how often the “professionals fall short of any credible standards of knowledge and balance on the issues of guns and gun rights. Ignorance, bias, parroting of agendas, deliberately not covering stories, gun control advocacy, and in general acting like government lapdogs, cheerleaders and abettors, as opposed to watchdogs, have been demonstrated time and again—for years.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
We're deep into Stalin's USSR territory now.
>>”Government decides who is a journalist. Government decides what is a church. Government decides who can petition the government. Government decides who can peacefully assemble.”
>
>The people decide what constitutes legitimate government. The ultimate trump card.
The problem is that those in power are disinclined to give up that power... most especially if they think of it as their right.
The last paragraph of the excerpt:
In terms of “journalistic standards,” one need only look at the “Authorized Journalist” archives compiled at Gun Rights Examiner and at The War on Guns blog to note how often the “professionals fall short of any credible standards of knowledge and balance on the issues of guns and gun rights. Ignorance, bias, parroting of agendas, deliberately not covering stories, gun control advocacy, and in general acting like government lapdogs, cheerleaders and abettors, as opposed to watchdogs, have been demonstrated time and again—for years.
So there’s no link?
Here is a link to the boston globe story:
You still haven’t come up with anything tying it to gun rights. The story that you linked to is consistent with what I have seen.
1 - it is not about gun rights - its about a a woman who made up lies.
2 - it is not about the first amendment - she has the same first amendment rights as what the judge would consider a ‘professional journalist’ but which we can all agree is not a cognizable classification under federal law.
3 - It does turn on who is protected by a state shield law. A number of states adopted additional protections for ‘journalists’ in the post Watergate era. These are state, not federal protections (and all of us can agree, can’t we, that states should be able to adopt laws in areas where the states have not ceded authority to the federal government under the Constitution.
4 - I personally feel that ‘shield’ laws are bad policy. But as a proponent of a smaller federal government, and states rights, I recognize that it is an issue of local policy.
So anyone who thinks that this case is about gun rights or constitutional law does not understand what is going on. And thus is probably qualified to be a ‘professional journalist’.
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