One of Congress's most influential members says Internet bloggers should be treated under the First Amendment like traditional journalists in print and on the air, based on what they do and not how what they write gets to those who read them.
Rep. John D. Conyers (D-Michigan), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said bloggers have broken several major news stories, from the flap over a 60 Minutes story on President Bush and the National Guard—which lead to a small housecleaning at CBS News and may have prodded CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather's resignation—to the White House granting "inappropriate" press briefing access to Jeff Gannon.
"The Internet has proved to be the greatest advancement in our ability to disseminate news and information since the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in 1450," Conyers wrote in a CNET essay published late last week.
"…Bloggers should be classified as journalists and given First Amendment protections based on the function they perform, not the form of their transmissions," Conyers continued. "Properly understood, the First Amendment applies to all those who report with journalistic integrity--offline or online."
Conyers's essay was published as the Federal Election Commission began considering, among other questions, whether bloggers should be made subject to McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform restrictions if their publications include links to political campaign Websites.
At the same time, an appeals court is considering whether three Internet writers will have to obey a lower court ruling to turn over their sources to Apple Computer regarding information they discussed in cyberprint about a product code named Asteroid before Apple itself was ready to disclose details. Apple won a lower court ruling under California's trade-secrets law and is suing company workers they think might have leaked the Asteroid details to the three writers.
Conyers said the bloggers have broken the actual or perceived logjam of media dominance by large conglomerates. "Whenever a potential story criticizing a powerful political figure or corporate parent is squelched, questions are raised concerning the independence of the mainstream news media," he wrote. "Bloggers, by contrast, are not subject to these same constraints or concerns, and have shown their independence over and over.
