Bill to protect journalists clears Senate panel
Journalists and bloggers who report news to the public will be protected from being forced to testify about their work under a media shield bill passed by a Senate committee Thursday.
But the new legal protections will not extend to the controversial online website Wikileaks and others whose principal work involves disclosing "primary-source documents … without authorization."
Senate sponsors of the bill and a coalition of media groups that support it hailed Thursday's bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee vote as a breakthrough.
"We're closer than we've ever been before to passing a strong and tough media shield bill," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "Thanks to important bipartisan compromises, we've put together a strong bill that balances the need for national security with that of a free press."
The final hurdle for the Judiciary Committee was defining who is a journalist in the digital era.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) insisted on limiting the legal protection to "real reporters" and not, she said, a 17-year-old with his own website.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-shield-law-20130913,0,4553946.story
= new reply since forum marked as read
More importantly it calls out who is not a journalist.
This is the establishment reeling from the loss of control of the message.
Politicians now have to deal with fact checking 17 year olds who might just destroy their careers.
