Bloggers want the same First Amendment protections that reporters enjoy. Bloggers should have the right to protect their sources without fear of prosecution.
In the physical world, being labeled a journalist may confer little prestige and may even evoke some contempt. But being a journalist can also confer certain privileges, like the right to keep sources confidential. And for that reason many bloggers, a scrappy legion of online commentators and pundits, would like to be considered reporters, too.
I support the bloggers in their attempts to win more freedom for what they do. Is it actual reporting? I'm not sure about that, but the freedom to express one's self should be promoted. And blogging has increased the number of people able to vent, to put forward unique views, and to respond to professionals.
However, this is a double edged sword. Along with formal protections must come certain responsibilities.
Yes, reporters do enjoy many protections, but they also have many legal and ethical restrictions that freedom-loving bloggers might hate.
Do bloggers want to be open to slander and libel cases? Not only would the political bloggers be at risk, but all the personal bloggers who blog about their neighbors and family. Thousands of mothers-in-laws could open up cases in court against bloggers with a poison keyboard.
The FEC monitors their actions. I'm not eager to curtail my potty mouth. I'm not sure that would make Wonkette too happy either.
Reporters have a code of ethics. The right of response. If one is discussed in an article, the reporter has the responsibility to get a statement from that person or his staff. Errors must be corrected immediately and publicly. It is debatable how well traditional news sources hold to these ethics, but they exist nonetheless.
For bloggers to receive equal protection under the First Amendment as reporters, then there must be a commonly agreed upon code of ethics for our behavior.
Some ideas:
If a private individual is targeted in a blog post, then their response must be made public in the same blog or in a blog with equal amount of traffic.
If mistakes are made, they must be quickly rectified. Bloggers can't hide behind the "I'm just a blogger" excuse.
While complete objectivity is impossible, attempts must be made to link to opposite points of view. A public acknowledgment of bias should be made.
The problem is that an ethical code dampens the fun, the high-wire act of blogging. But we have to make a decision at some point. What is blogging?
UPDATE: Amber gives a legal critique of this post. She points out that the FEC governs radio broadcasts far more closely than printed medium. Of course, I know that, but I wrote that post during one episode of Roly Poly Olie this morning and didn't read it over. Which makes my point nicely. Blogging isn't reporting. A post that is thrown together during twenty minutes of Playhouse Disney is on a different planet from an article that several eyes review and that takes days or weeks to write.
And there is a code of behavior for reporters (again, some abide by it more than others). In college, I once wrote an article for the college newspaper about accounting irregularities by the yearbook editor, but never got a response from him. I got hung out dry for that one and rightly so.
However, the main point of my post was that at some time, bloggers will have to decide how serious we take our work. If we want protections from the law that are accorded to the press and not individuals, then we might have to clean up act.