Kevin Sites has an article on Josh Wolff, the blogger who thinks he's a journalist, who was jailed for contempt of court when he refused to hand over his raw video footage of a protest in 2005.
Wolf was in prison for refusing to hand over video he shot during a protest in San Francisco in 2005. In a deal brokered between his lawyers and federal prosecutors, Wolf posted the uncut video of the protest on his site, JoshWolf.net, gave prosecutors a copy, told them he had not witnessed any crimes and was released.
In exchange, prosecutors acceded to Wolf's key contention: that he not be made to appear before a grand jury and identify those on his videotape.
"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' Wolf told reporters outside the gates of the prison. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''
I hate to be the one to break the bad news to Mr. Wolff, but people don't trust journalists now. They think that most of them are partisan, biased, and don't even bother with objectivity. And if Wolff thinks being a blogger will make people trust him more, he has another thing coming.
There are all sorts of bloggers out there, from actual reporters and editors to the guy next door who can't even spell. And there's everything in between. Wolff falls into that "in between" category, whether he believes it or not.
Calling yourself a journalist because you write some stories on your blog doesn't make you a journalist any more than sticking a press pass in your hat band does.
But what exactly makes one a journalist? Debra Saunders, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle has covered Wolff's story extensively and said that he's not a journalist.
Ultimately, Saunders says, it won't be journalists and bloggers who decide the issue, but the government.
"The courts are going to end up deciding who journalists are, because, unfortunately, this administration is really pushing the envelope in jailing journalists, and it won't end with the Bush administration," Saunders says. "It will get bigger as people point fingers in many ways, and that means the courts are going to decide who journalists are. You may not like it, but that's the way it is."
Saunders is right. One of the great things about the U.S.A. is that freedom of the press has always meant that virtually anybody can be a writer, editor, or publisher, regardless of education, licensing, or pedigree. Unlike just about everywhere else in the world, you are not required to have any particular education or a license from the government to call yourself a journalist.
Until now.
Wolff tried to hide behind California's shield law so that he wouldn't have to give up his video to the police. But shield laws only work where everybody knows and understands what a journalist is and respects the idea that reporters do not disclose sources.
In Wolff's case, he certainly was not a journalist in anything approaching the traditional definition. He was not associated with any publication, he was involved in the protest, and there was no ethical obligation for him not to release his video. If anything, the fact that he was so recalcitrant made his claims look worse.
Are bloggers journalists? I'm reluctant to call them that, given the bad reputation some bloggers have and the fact that so many blogs are little more than screeds for one cause or another.
Am I a journalist? I've been one in the past. I started working in journalism in high school, throughout college, and for several years afterwards at the local major metro daily. I loved the work, the atmosphere, the deadlines, the adrenaline. I still miss it at times.
But I wouldn't say that sitting in my game room commenting on events large and small makes me a journalist. I'm not sure I would consider myself one if I actually went to certain events and wrote about them on my blog. To me, in order to be a journalist, it requires greater care, more restrictions on one's writing and behavior than I feel like blogging require.
So, are bloggers journalists? I suppose some are, but I'm still not convinced that Wolff falls into the journalist category.
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