Is Blogging Journalism?

An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of the judge's refusal to extend journalist protections to Think Secret in its case against Apple, the Net is abuzz with commentaries coming to its defense. MacInTouch points to three of them, from CNET's Declan McCullagh, MP3 Newswire's Richard Menta and grassroots journalism pundit Dan Gillmor. All agree that Apple went too far with its case and question the court's decision that Web journalists don't count."

Definately

Considering how much research that some people put into their blogs I would definately consider it a form of journalism.

Re:Definately

Why not the oposite? Considering how little research that most people put into their blogs I would definitely not consider it a form of journalism.

Wait. Journalists still research their articles?

Re:Definately

It seems to me that while most people don't research their blogs there are some that do.

The same is true for journalists...most are rather crappy but the precious few that do their job well are those who define their job field.

In this way bloggers are in fact journalists, albeit unpaid, just some are better than others.

Re:Definately

I run CircusNews.com. CircusNews.com runs on PHP-Nuke, aka blogging software.

Is my website a blog or a news service?

I like to think so. CircusNews.com is currently the most widely read news publication in the circus industry. Big Apple, Ringlings, Cirque and everyone else in the industry gladly issues us press passes when ever we ask. State and (in at least one major case) federal agencies have relied on our research and news reports over the years, not to mention the 50,000 readers we see a month. We are looking at licening AP content, and perhaps joining the AP.

So if we are not a news service, can ANYONE explain to me why not?

Re:Definately

Yup.

Is the New York Times journalism? Yep. (usually at least ;)

Is the Star paper that you can pick up in your supermaket journalism? No.

Both are on paper media. The media has nothing to do with it. It's all about the quality.

99% of blogs are crap, but there are certain ones that I would say certainly are journalism.

Re:Definately

"Is the New York Times journalism? Yep. (usually at least ;)

Is the Star paper that you can pick up in your supermaket journalism? No.

Both are on paper media. The media has nothing to do with it. It's all about the quality."

To add to you point:

I've seen many comments here and in TFAs to the effect of, "What if the New York Times had published those leaks? There'd be no lawsuit."

That's disinginous at best and stupid at worst. The New York Times would never had published the leak. An editor would have asked the reporter who their source was, and if it was an Apple insider, would have asked if the insider was covered by an NDA.

That's because the New York Times actually engages in journalism.

Re:Qualitative measures?

Qualitative measures are used all of the time. Simply because a line is gray doesn't mean we do not try to apply a certain amount of common sense to the situation. Take for example "Good Samaritan" laws that protect me if I choose to give CPR to a dying person. If I crack a rib, that law protects me. Even if I do a crappy job of it. Now lets say i decide to jump up and down on the man's chest to try to start the heart. Well, the law no longer protects me as my actions were no longer 'reasonable'. Where is the line between reasonable and unreasonable? Hard to say. But the ideas of 'reasonable' and 'prudent' are all throughout our law. They have to be. So, we do have to make some distinction between who is a journalist and who is not. My one-entry blog certainly does not merit journalistic status. A regular Business Week columnist does. Somewhere in-between? Let the law figure it out.

Re:Qualitative measures?

No, lots and lots and lots of stuff in the New York Times is not important to me. Most of it isn't. I don't care what's new in the Arts world. I don't read the Business section, etc, etc. But I bet the reports who write the articles for those bits did their research and make sure that what they are publishing is correct as far as they can tell from their research. That's what makes it journalism. The professionalism. Not whether I find that bit important or not.

Re:Definately

They published trade secrets. That's not news.

They weren't doing this for the public good. They were doing it to steal Apple's thunder.

The good that they did was for Apples competitors. They let them know Apples trade secrets so that those competitors could now adjust their plans to out compete Apple.

Just because something is factual, it doesn't make it news.

I could publish your name, social security number, bank account number, credit card number, and pin number. As long as they are accurate, it's cool with you I give them to the whole world, right?

No, because that is private infromation, the release of which does nothing for the public good. It only hurts the person who held it as personal information.

Not every piece of information in the world is 'news' worthy of protection of the press.

Was Apple Right?

See Professor Susan Crawford's piece on this on her blog where she argues the outcome (if not the reasoning) of the Judge's ruling was correct... http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/ 3/6/404732.html [blogware.com]

Re:Was Apple Right?

Her argument rests then on the premise that any magazine which makes its business off of discovering insider secrets in other companies and disclusing them has no right to exist in a democratic society? Is that a correct assessment?

Re:Was Apple Right?

But I as the blogger don't have any responsability to protect your NDA.

Actually, you do. Go read the Uniform Trade Secrets Act if you think otherwise. If there is a distinct possibility that the knowledge you are receiving is a protected secret (and in the Apple case, it was 99% certain because everything is under NDA anyway), and you receive it anyway and act on or publish said information, you have breached the UTSA and can be punished.

Anyway, the Apple court had absolutely nothing at all about the 'blogger' protecting the NDA, Apple was suing for the name of his source, you know - the person who actually broke the NDA. If the thinksecret guy hadnt refused to hand the name over, he wouldnt be in court at this moment - Apple arent after him, they are after the person who leaked the information.

Some of the time.

Blogging is just a medium through which to deliver content. Like any kind of writing, it can be good, or it can be crap.

Short answer: no

Caveat: ThinkSecret is not a blog.

Depends on what you mean by "journalism"

What with journalistic ethics taking a number of hits over the past few years (Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, "Jeff Gannon", et al) - and, Mac rumor "blogs" aside, the mainstream media is beginning to pay heed to bloggers at all levels of the news cycle. Just recently Garrett Graf, who runs the political blog FishbowlDC [mediabistro.com], was granted access to the White House Press Briefing [nytimes.com] - the same thing Guckert/Gannon was maligned for attending without any "real" credentials.

Graf is the former editor of the Harvard Crimson, but he's not a journalist in the traditional sense, and he represents the first "legit" blogger allowed into the press gaggle. I'd say that's a very positive sign.

Hmmm

Online bloggers (in various forms) who pretend to be journalists are upset that courts ruled that bloggers who pretend to be journalists aren't really journalists.

Hard to imagine why that would be the case.

When everything that happens to be written becomes journalism, then the word journalism ceases to mean anything.

Definition of journalism

I think a major factor that determines journalism is accountability.

Blogs just aren't as accountable as a major commercial entity like a magazine or newspaper. Just look at Slashdot. It posts flat-out inaccurate and wrong information all the time as front page news articles. But it's not really news, and the editors aren't journalists. They're just posting user-submitted blocks of text with links to other sites, often without vetting the information or even seeing if it was posted already.

If Slashdot was a print magazine, I guarantee facts would get checked a lot more often. But the Internet is seen as a responsibility-less place with no rules, so the attitude is much more lax.

Drudge posts blaring headlines and then edits them 30 minutes later when they turn out to be wrong. He posted that the Oscars had come "back from the dead" in ratings, and then an hour later I checked the site to see a giant headline claiming that ratings had been the lowest in five years. There was no mention of the change.

It's so easy to set up a webserver and post anything. That's why they are not considered journalists. When you're employed by a real news organization, there is a level of accountability and standards that must be met, or you will be fired. That accountability to someone isn't there when you're in your underwear and running your own server to post what you want.

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press

So the real question:

Isn't everyone protected by the First Amendment? If so, should everyone ALSO be protected as journalists?

Why not?

Why is my speech and my actions less protected than someone who works for CBS?

I write on Slashdot; I write on LiveJournal; I write on my own set of forums and a private website. Why do journalists, but not citizens, get protected through journalistic shield laws?

Blogging isn't journalism.Journalism is journalism

Journalism is irrespective of any medium -- and that includes blogs.

A journalist is a journalist whether they spread they spread their work through newspapers, magazines, trade publications, pamphlets, zines, radio, television, web sites, blogs or even as town crier.

The medium is not the message.

journalist protections?

the judge's refusal to extend journalist protections to Think Secret

Uh... last I checked, US courts do not recognize the notion that a journalist has the right to refuse to disclose a confidential source. More than one reporter has been thrown in jail for contempt of court over this. So, I'm not real clear here how Think Secret's treatment is any different than what a normal journalist would get?

Blog = Journal

A blog is an online journal. A journalist is "one who keeps/writes a journal". So how is a TV Anchor more of a "journalist" than a blogger?

The spirit of the law is to let the truth get out without compromising the truth-teller's safety / privacy. I think using it to provide insider info that may break NDA's about upcoming products is unfortunate, but we must defend it or else real whistleblowers, such as someone ratting out a pharmaceutical cover-up, will be afraid to tell their story, and the public will get hurt.

I don't agree with the KKK, for an extreme example, but I do agree with their right to speak their minds; and the same goes for thinksecret.com: I think it's sneaky to sell apple's private product info (paid informants, or just ads on the site) and then protect the transaction under the cover of journalism, but to protect other bloggers conveying more vital issues, we must also protect thinksecret.

Similar points raised in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141361&cid=118 47784 [slashdot.org]

Re:No

Well, since this case is all about *facts* being published, and not opinions... while some blogs are all about editorializing, I think that in these cases, they're clearly reporting.

Re:Well...

Cable news "personalities" calling themselves journalists is, more often than not, like someone watching a meteor shower calling themself an astronomer. TV is like a machine that sucks any objectivity and factual evidence out of news and replaces it with inflammatory propaganda, fear mongering, and flashy graphics. Not that some blogs don't have the same problems, but if cable news is the standard to beat there are definitely bloggers that qualify as journalists.

Re:Well...

The UCLA/Stanford study was very well done, and measured "bias" as the frequency with which left wing vs right wing sources (such as think tanks) were cited. It was a very objective way to measure bias, if not necessarily what is commonly meant.

Fox news was right of center, but not too far. The PBS News Hour was the most balanced. ABC and NBC were left of center, but not too far. CBS was pretty far to the left.

Fox News is very comercially sucessful because it is the only TV news outlet with a right wing bias. Market research found that a *majority* of Americans thought the existing news at the time had a bias to the left, so creating a station with some bias to the right was an excellent marketing decision: provide what the majority of viewers want to see, and be the only outlet doing so.

That doesn't, by itself, mean the reporting on Fox News is any better or worse than ABC or NBC, or any more biased, just well targeted to the largest demographic in its direction of bias. Personally, I think all the 24-hour news chanels are terrible, as there's usually a lot less news than they have hours to fill, so you get mostly low-quality filler.

Re:This is wrong...

wheelbarrow wrote:

What if someone violated Apple's NDA and reported on Apple employing slave labor to clean floors at company headquarters? In your world, karmaflux, the NDA violator would be in the wrong, get punished, and the slaves would still be slaves.

Nice example, but, unfortunately, wrong:

The NDA is simply a contract. In order for a contract to be valid, the object of the contract must be lawfull. In this case, the object of the contract would be to cover-up an unlawfull act (use of slave labor) thus the contract (the NDA) would be void, and karmaflux could not, then, be in violation of the NDA.