Via
Jeff Jarvis, Floyd Abrams on the
reportorial privilege and blogging:
TERENCE SMITH: Who is a reporter, you mean?
VICTORIA TOENSING: I'm sorry. Who is a journalist, who qualifies to protect the source? The New York Times, sure, these are all Floyd's kinds of clients, but what about a freelance journalist? What about a blogger?
TERENCE SMITH: Well, what about a blogger, Floyd Abrams?
FLOYD ABRAMS: I was asked that today, and I said as I say here, I think a blogger ought to be protected also. It seems to me that the purpose of this privilege is to protect the people who play a function in American life.
It's not to protect reporters as such. It's to protect people who gather information and disseminate it on a widespread basis to the public. So I think eventually if there is a privilege, and that's one of the things the court's going to deal with, but if there is a privilege here, whether it's rooted in the First Amendment or what's called federal common law, I think it should apply to bloggers as well.
Of course this is absolutely correct and applies to the new FEC regulations as well. Carol Darr, who pretends to know something about journalism, should take heed from Floyd Abrams, one of the preeminent First Amendment lawyers in the country.