Weekly column: bloggers remain second-class citizens, legally speaking [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/Apple+goes+to+the+source/2010-1071_3-5601664.html

Apple goes to the source
March 7, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh

Apple Computer's attempts to strong-arm Web publishers into divulging 
their confidential sources illustrates how bloggers, Internet 
journalists and other online scribes remain second-rate citizens.

No significant difference exists between the news-gathering techniques 
used by traditional reporters and the publishers of Apple news sites 
Think Secret, Apple Insider, and PowerPage. But there is a tremendous 
legal chasm dividing them: The California law protecting confidential 
sources shields only broadcast media and "periodical publications"--not 
the Web.

Apple claims that the Web writers are not "legitimate members of the 
press" when revealing details about forthcoming products. Those actions, 
though, describe exactly what good journalists do--writing articles that 
serve their readers, rather than the parochial interests of a single 
corporation.

The ability of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to protect Deep Throat 
led to their famous series of Washington Post articles about the 
Watergate break-in and subsequently led to President Richard Nixon's 
downfall. At the time, Nixon's Committee for the Re-election of the 
President tried to compel Woodward and Bernstein to divulge their 
sources through a lawsuit.

Nixon failed. In a March 1973 decision, U.S. District Judge Charles 
Richey wrote: "This court cannot blind itself to the possible 'chilling 
effect' the enforcement of these broad subpoenas would have on the flow 
of information to the press, and so to the public."

Apple is trying to win the argument that Richard Nixon lost...

The eventual outcome of the case may turn on the wording of the 
California Constitution. It protects anyone currently or previously 
employed by "a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or 
by a press association or wire service." That shields sites like 
News.com, Salon.com, and Slate.com--typically staffed by ex-newspaper 
reporters--but probably doesn't help bloggers or the Apple news sites...

[...remainder snipped...]
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