How to avoid morning frustration the night before . . .

I should have read InstaPundit before I went to bed last night. Ought to be a ritual like brushing my teeth. Seriously, I'm not saying this to compliment Glenn Reynolds, but he has a way of spotting the really important stuff -- things that Drudge misses, and things I'd certainly miss. Had I seen that link last night, I'd have been less frustrated this morning.

A blogger called Silent Running spotted this exchange on PBS and put it in his blog:

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. (Emphasis added.)

Floyd Abrams, of course, is the lead attorney in what is the most important First Amendment case (and news story) to come along in years. Saying bloggers are included in the journalistic privilege is huge news.

Yet according to a story I managed to spot in this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer, the issue is merely whether the New York Times (and Time magazine) reporters should be forced to comply with subpoenas in the Plame case:

WASHINGTON - An attorney for two journalists subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury asked a federal court yesterday to rule that they do not have to disclose their confidential sources in an investigation into the leak of a covert CIA officer's name.

Floyd Abrams, who represents New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine, urged a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court to rule that the two do not have to comply with the subpoena.

Abrams said journalists were protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Fleissner argued that under a 1972 Supreme Court ruling, journalists were not granted absolute First Amendment protection in criminal cases.

Appeals Court Judge David Sentelle appeared to side with the government, asking why reporters were more privileged than others who are required to testify if subpoenaed.

"The role of the press as a critic of the government, as exposing... what's going on, is... different," Abrams responded.

For over an hour, I've had only one question:

WHY WOULD A STORY OF THIS MAGNITUDE BE BURIED ON PAGE A-20?

It's not even in the front section, much less the front page!

Why?

This made no sense at all, until I caught up with last night's reading.

What's good news for bloggers is not considered good news.

And of course, what's not reported in the Inquirer accounts for the burial of this otherwise highly important story. As Jonah Goldberg puts it:

What's particularly ironic is that the big-media lawyers fear the courts will allow a blanket shield for journalists because there's no way to exclude one-man-band web journalists — bloggers — from the new right. And what's the point of giving the nobility a new privilege if any peasant can take advantage of it, too? (Via Glenn Reynolds.)
Ah, but the peasants can't take advantage of it if they don't know about it!

MORE OLD NEWS: Now I'm having an attack of recovered lost memory syndrome.... Does anyone remember last summer when bloggers attended conventions? Some REAL journalists didn't like it at all, and didn't mind letting us know about it:

"I think that bloggers have put the issue of professionalism under attack," said Thomas McPhail, professor of media studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who argues that journalists should be professionally credentialed. "They have no pretense to objectivity. They don't cover both sides."
They don't cover both sides? (Like both sides of the Plame litigation?)

Funny, but all these years I thought that was a major complaint about "real" journalists....

posted by Eric on 12.09.04 at 08:35 AM





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Comments

Yeah, journalists should be "credentialed". People need to be licensed to practice free-speech. After all, the 1st amendment is regulated under the Commerce Clause.

[Am I having trouple spelling today?]

J. Peden   ·  December 9, 2004 03:25 PM

I'm sure the monks felt the same way about Herr Guttenburg.

Ted B.   ·  December 9, 2004 05:01 PM

He puts it well about bloggers: "They have no pretense to objectivity." [emphasis mine]

That pretense is precisely the problem with the "mainstream" media, in my opinion. If they were open about their biases, we'd all be a lot better off.

As for myself, I freely admit that I am biased. I openly boast that I look at the world through eyes that are biased in favor of Polytheistic Godliness, Selfishness, Sexiness, and the values that flow from these primary values of mine. Up With Beauty!



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