A U.S. court is being asked to force a blogger to give up the IP addresses of those who commented anonymously at his blog as well as anyone who even viewed some content that is at the heart of a defamation action.
In response, some are prepared to argue that bloggers ought to afforded the same protections for anonymous sources that protect mainstream journalists (in the U.S. at least.)
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The case involves a Charlottesville, Va. blogger who is being sued over content at his blog. A Washington-based public interest group, The Public Citizen Litigation Group, has intervened in the case and issued a press release today about this, with this paragraph:
“One of our country’s founding values is that the person standing on the soapbox in the town square has the same freedom of speech they have at The New York Times or the Toledo Blade, for that matter,” [the PCLG] said. “Bloggers … may not be ‘traditional’ journalists but they play an integral part in the way people get their news today.”
One aspect of this case I find alarming, is the demand by the plaintiff for the IP addresses of anyone who even viewed the blog posting.
An IP or Internet Protocol address, for those not up on all their geeky goodness, is a unique number that identifies your computer on the Internet. It's how the Internet knows where to find you. Every device connected to the Internet is assigned an IP address while connected to the network. If you connect to the Internet from an Internet service provider (ISP), that ISP will tend to keep records or logs of what IP address was assigned to which customer at what time. That's how your activities on the Internet can be traced back to a physical location. There are ways to connect to the Internet without leaving what are essentially breadcrumbs for someone who really wants to find you but that's a topic for another day …
The bottom line for most users is that when you surf the Web or read a blog and you do nothing else, you probably don't expect, nor should you, that a judge somewhere might want to examine your name, address, and reasons for looking at that online content.
Here's a note from Paul Alan Levy of the PCLG:
Together with the ACLU of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Freedom of Expression, we have intervened in the case mentioned a few days ago in which a plaintiff in a defamation case retaliated against a blogger who covered his defamation suit in less than flattering terms by sending a highly invasive subpoena that demands production of the blogger's communications with his sources, IP numbers of all who posted on his web site or even READ the web site. There have been only a handful of cases in which courts have addressed whether bloggers should be treated as journalists for the purpose of considering the reporters' privilege. We are also arguing that, in addition to protecting the commenters on the blog for the reasons usually argued — protecting their right of anonymous speech — posters on a journalists blog should be treated as “sources” whose disclosure violates the journalist's own rights…
With rights come responsibilities. If bloggers want to be afforded the protection of journalists, they should start acting a little like journalists.
For example, not publishing libelous material, checking the authenticity of their sources before publishing their anonymous information, etc. In essence, exercise some responsibility for what they publish and do some basic due diligence before publishing inflammatory information.
If bloggers are becoming to be taken seriously as news sources, then that means their ability to unfairly impugn and defame the reputation of innocents can't be argued away either. People should and must have the right to confront their accusers, anonymous or not. Journalists don't have an absolute right to shield their sources either.
Short answer is yes. There is no standard definition of what a journalist is. There is no universal set of standards and practices. If journalists want any kind of exclusive treatment they need a professional code that is agreed upon and enforced (like doctors and lawyers) otherwise there is no distinction.
Is Jon Stewart a journalist? He says he's not but many of his viewers think he's more credible as a journalist than any network news anchor. Is Rush Limbaugh a journalist? I suspect he thinks he is but the Democrats/White House think he's pretty much the leader of the Republicans right now.
I think viewers and readers ultimately decide who's a journalist and who isn't.
The tricky part is when gatekeepers are forced to choose. There's only so many seats, for example, in the pressbox at a sports events. Who gets the seats? There's only so many seats on Air Force One? Who gets the seats? There's only so many tickets for opening night for theatre critics. Who gets the seats? Ask gatekeepers how they define journalists.
The problem with leaving it up to the gatekeepers is that, maybe not today, but ultimately, they'll decide that the seats should go to people who are sympathetic to their side – or at least not overly critical. Leaving it to the gatekeepers risks the press corps becoming a fan club.
“If bloggers are becoming to be taken seriously as news sources …”
I may be wrong, but most bloggers – at least, the ones I visit regularly – take a news item or an op-ed as a departure point to express an opinion or to start a discussion, so I would disagree that bloggers are “news sources.”
“Citizen journalists” is a term applied to those who happen to witness a news event and record it with their handy cell phones. I don’t believe bloggers are in the same category.
Should bloggers be liable for expressing negative opinions of someone? No, nor should any commenters on that thread.
If the blogger, OTOH, is maliciously disseminating false information about someone, then I believe defamation laws should kick in – but for the initiator of the defamation, not those who rely on the blogger's “information” to express their own opinion.
If someone buys a book in which the author has disseminated defamatory and injurious comments or information, is the buyer and/or borrower of the (library) book also liable?
As for the statement that “There is no universal set of standards and practices” for journalists:
http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/accountability/journalistic/journoprincipals.shtml
accuracy, integrity, and fairness are good starting points.