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U.S. Court Declares Bloggers Second Class Citizens, Not Part of Media

December 7, 2011 By 3 Comments

A U.S. district court just ruled that bloggers — at least bloggers in Oregon — are not part of the media, and therefore, not protected by Oregon’s media shield laws.

As a citizen journalist, this scares the bejeezus out of me. If you’re a blogger of any kind, it should worry you too.

I’ve been clamoring for years that bloggers are citizen journalists. That is, we should be entitled to the same First Amendment protections, the same access, and the same considerations that newspaper, TV, and radio reporters get. At the same time, it means that bloggers need to act like journalists: with great power comes great responsibility, etcetera, etcetera.Handcuffs

But a U.S. District Court judge in Portland, Oregon just set us back to pre-1990 days when he ruled against Crystal Cox, a blogger, after she was sued by Obsidian Finance Group for defamation over blog posts that criticized the firm and co-founder Kevin Padrick. The judge also awarded Padrick $2.5 million.

In his ruling, the judge wrote:

. . . although defendant is a self-proclaimed “investigative blogger” and defines herself as “media,” the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law.

Seriously? Pamphlets? In other words, if she had slapped together an 8-page booklet at Fedex/Kinko’s, she would have been protected?

Whether this is a problem with the judge not understanding the Internet, or — more likely — Oregon having a media shield law that doesn’t reflect 21st century technology, this may have a chilling effect on bloggers, even in states with media shield laws.

As it stands now, Oregon’s media shield law says:

No person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required by … a judicial officer … to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise … [t]he source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public[.]

Seems comprehensive enough: any medium of communication to the public strikes me as anything from newspapers to TV to radio to the Internet (including blogs). But when someone learned about the Internet from the Ted Stevens’ School of Technology, they may not realize that the Internet is far more evolved than pamphlets.

Compare Oregon’s law to Washington’s media shield law:

Any newspaper, magazine or other periodical, book publisher, news agency, wire service, radio or television station or network, cable or satellite station or network, or audio or audiovisual production company, or any entity that is in the regular business of news gathering and disseminating news or information to the public by any means, including, but not limited to, print, broadcast, photographic, mechanical, internet, or electronic distribution;

(Read more about Washington’s media shield law here.)

Washington at least spells out what they consider to be the media. But any state that has not included “the Internet” in their shield laws may be able to exclude bloggers from the people who should be protected.

In other words, if you are a pamphleteer, you’re protected. If you type something on a typewriter, reproduce it on a mimeograph machine, and staple everything together by hand, you’re protected by the First Amendment. But if you publish the biggest online-only newspaper, and have for the last fifteen years, tough. You’re not protected by media shield laws in Oregon, or several other states.

This will have a chilling effect on your rights as a journalist, as the government can impose sanctions on bloggers and Internet-based writers, simply by declaring they are not part of the protected media.

Photo credit: Tourettte (Flickr)

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    About : Blogging, citizen journalism, and media shield laws  •  Accountable Person : Erik Deckers  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Content Rating : PG  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Creator : Erik Deckers  •  Genre : Non-fiction  •  Headline : U.S. Court Declares Bloggers Second Class Citizens, Not Part of Media  •  Keywords : blogging, citizen journalism, blogger, Oregon, media shield law, Washington  •  Source Organization : Professional Blog Service  •  Version : 1.0  • 
    Filed Under: Blogging, Citizen Journalism, News, Newspapers, Radio, Social Media, Television, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Philadelphia Violates Bloggers’ First Amendment Rights with Blogger Tax

    August 24, 2010 By 7 Comments
    A photo of a guy who has managed to wedge his head up his ass

    Bloggers everywhere are in revolt over Philadelphia’s “blog tax” controversy. Philadelphia is requiring all bloggers to pay a $50 per year (or $300 lifetime) license fee.

    Needless to say, bloggers have more than a little bit to say about this.

    Regardless of whether their blogs make money, they are required to pay this tax — the city would like you to call it a “licensing fee” because tax sounds so. . . tax-y — all because a few bloggers made money from ads.A photo of a guy who has managed to wedge his head up his ass

    “There’s often a blurry line when someone’s passion becomes their profession,” said Doug Oliver, a spokesman for the Mayor’s office, entirely missing the point of people who try to find their life’s purpose and make a living at doing what they love.

    Their argument is that any business that has profit making potential, whether it’s through ads or any other means, must pay the tax licensing fee, even if you only made $3 from your blog.

    At the very least, this is a nuisance and one that will be done away with once Philadelphia realizes how stupid it is. A step above that, it’s a First Amendment violation, and it’s going to take someone like the EFF or ACLU to step in and fight this. And worst, Philadelphia is only going to contribute to the brain drain of their city as smart bloggers leave the city in search of a less taxing locale. (Note to Philadelphia bloggers: come to Indianapolis. We’d be happy to have you.)

    Other cities have tried requiring licensing fees for organized protesters and those were defeated in the courts under First Amendment grounds, so hopefully Philadelphia will be soundly spanked and other cities will learn the folly of trying to levy a tax against people who barely make any money doing what they do for their passion.

    While one could argue that it’s “only” 50 bucks a year, or $4.17 per month, it’s the principle of the thing. Most bloggers spend hours a week on their hobby, often already paying for domain name registration, site hosting, templates. They buy blogging books and attend blogging conferences. They already pay to pursue their hobby, and now Philadelphia wants to get their grubby little fingers into everyone else’s pie.

    What’s next for Mayor Michael Nutter’s office? What passion can they suck the life out of with another tax licensing fee? Maybe artists or athletes or people who grow their own vegetables?

    What do you think? Is Philadelphia being unfair, or should they charge a licensing fee to bloggers? What’s the upside? What’s the downside? What’s to keep all of Philadelphia’s bloggers from moving out to the suburbs (or Indianapolis) and thumbing their noses at their hometown?

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      Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging Tagged With: , , ,

      Blogger FINALLY Gets Spam Filter

      August 16, 2010 By 2 Comments
      Blogger.com now offers a spam filter, just like their Gmail program.

      My biggest frustration with Blogger has been the absolute lack of spam moderation. This has been a problem, because I’ve had my humor blog for five years on Blogspot. And while I have been relatively free of spam, lately I’ve been getting a single spam message by a Chinese spammer on every post I make, which meant I had to delete it every single time.

      I tried making people sign in, then made it so only people with a Google account could leave a comment. But this weasel was always a step ahead, and I had to delete message after message.

      But Blogger finally caught up with something WordPress has been able to do for years: block spam comments.

      Blogger finally adds a spam filter to their comments.

      Blogger now filters spam comments into a spam folder, just like the one they have in Gmail.

      When someone leaves a comment on your blog, it will be reviewed against our spam detector, and comments that are identified as possible spam will be sent to your blog’s Spam Inbox, found at Comments | Spam.

      While I thoroughly appreciate the filter and the fact that they’re finally doing something about blog spam, why couldn’t they do this a couple years ago?

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        Filed Under: Blogging, Tools Tagged With: , , ,

        Six Secrets to Automating Your Social Media Communication

        July 2, 2010 By 1 Comment

        How can you make your social media communication easier? Are there any tips or tricks to use to reduce some of the heavy lifting you have to do just to get your messages out to the public?

        Since I do social media communication, for myself and for clients, I use several shortcuts to automate a lot of what I do. Rather than posting a blog, and then posting the headline and URL to Twitter, then over at Facebook, and again at LinkedIn, I try to do it in one step. Or rather than uploading photos and videos to Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube, and then uploading them to a blog post to share them, I’m able to do it all at once.

        I wrote this for Martin Earley, who is the new Inn-Bedded Resorter at The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. I was one of five finalists, and got to meet Martin during our stay there. I think he was a great choice, and I know he’ll have a good time. But he also has to report what he’s doing via social media, which can be difficult if you’re trying to post content to both your site and a work site, so I offered him some tips to make his work easier. As I started writing them out, I decided it would be just as easy to put it into a blog post.

        Here are a few of the tricks and tools I use to make my life a whole lot easier:

        1. Bit.ly: We’ll start with this ubiquitous URL shortener, because it will figure into nearly everything we do. Set up a bit.ly account, and then put your API key somewhere easy to find. (It can be a pain to go back to bit.ly to find it each time you need it.) Learn how to use it, and figure out their analytics section.
        2. TwitterFeed.com: Twitterfeed will visit your blog once every 30 minutes – 24 hours to see if you have anything new. Once you have a new blog post up, Twitterfeed will scoop up your headline and the URL, shorten it with bit.ly (see? We’re using it already), and then send it out to your Twitter feed and Facebook status updates.
        3. Ping.fm: You can expand TwitterFeed’s reach by sending your feed to Ping.fm, instead of Twitter. Not only can you send your new blog posts to Twitter and Facebook, but to MySpace, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, and even your Ning networks. Plus you can go to Ping.fm and directly post medium-length messages to Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad.

          WARNING! Do NOT set up Ping.fm to post something TO your blog if you already set up a Twitterfeed-Ping combination FROM your blog. This will create an infinite loop, which will tear a hole in the space-time continuum. This could be bad.

        4. Posterous.com: I’ve been playing with Posterous for a few months now, and really like it. It’s an email submission blog platform. Basically, you email your blog posts to your Posterous account, and it will post it for you. Your subject line is the headline, the email message is the body copy, and any photos you attach will be placed within the message. Then, you can notify your networks, just like Ping.fm, including populating your other blogs with your Posterous content, and even using bit.ly to shorten your URLs.

          Now, I know Blogger and WordPress both do this, but Posterous does something that the others won’t do: if you upload photos, Posterous will also send them to your Flickr and/or Picasa accounts. Upload a video, and Posterous will send it to your YouTube account.

          So, if you take some photos on your cell phone, attach them to an email, and send them to Posterous, you can send them to any special photo accounts, as well as populate your other blog feeds, which are then sent out to your Twitter, Facebook, etc.

        5. ScribeFire: This is a great blog editor that you use directly inside Firefox. Instead of going to your blog and logging in, you can open it up in Firefox, write your post, and hit upload. Rather than using a web-based interface, you can use an interface right on your computer. Both ScribeFire and Posterous are great if you have a slow Internet connection. (MacJournal is another program I’ve tried. There are Windows-based programs that do this as well.)
        6. TweetDeck: I use TweetDeck on my laptop for my Twitter communication. And when that’s all it did, it was awesome. But now TweetDeck is even awesomer, because whenever I send out a tweet, I can also send it as both a Facebook and LinkedIn update. I can also schedule tweets to take place at odd times — 1:53, 10:27 — instead of the every-5-minute intervals HootSuite limits you to. And best of all, it uses bit.ly as its default URL shortener. I can even pop a URL into TweetDeck, shorten it, and then cut it to use somewhere else. But the URL still gets pushed over to bit.y’s website where it gets included in the analytics.

        While I don’t recommend automating everything you do in social media, like message creating, it’s at least a great way to lighten your load and make your life easier.

        Photo credit: genewolf (Flickr)

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          Filed Under: All Posts, Blogging, Marketing, Social Media, Tools, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

          Why Writers Need a Dedicated Website or Blog

          April 19, 2010 By 1 Comment

          Writers are some of the worst self-promoters I know.

          “I’m a writer, not a marketer” is the familiar lament.

          Writers suffer from the all-too-familiar “if you build it they will come” syndrome. If I write something, publishers should leap out of their chair, shouting that their lifelong search is over, and take the private jet to my house and sign me to a huge book deal. Problem is, it just doesn’t work that way.nude woman with write or be written off

          Show me a writer who’s not a marketer, and I’ll show you a failed writer.

          Fellow humor writer Bruce “8 Simple Rules” Cameron (yeah, those 8 Simple Rules) recently said in an email, “So, despite the fact that nobody can prove to me that a writer needs a dedicated web site, I re-designed and re-launched my writer website last month.”

          There are any number of reasons why writers need their own website. First and foremost, it’s a marketing tool. You build awareness with your website, you give this increasingly-online world a place to find you. Before it was easy to build a website, Bruce built an email subscription list of 40,000 people in 52 countries in the late 1990s. That was his marketing tool, and one he used to great effect, but it wasn’t easy to find or join.

          Secondly, it’s a publishing tool. If you’re just starting out as a writer, there’s no better way to start publishing and finding readers. Set up a blog, write stuff, and gather readers. Then, keep writing stuff and gathering more readers. Eventually, your writing will be seen by influential people, and you’ll find newer and bigger opportunities.

          So to answer Bruce’s question, and in keeping with his writings, I give you…

          8 Simple Rules Why Writers Need Their Own Dedicated Website:

          1. Readers and editors can find you.
          2. Your readers become big fans. Big fans tell their friends, who also become big fans. Big fans buy your books, that you were asked to write by the editors.
          3. You hotlink to your book on Amazon, and drive your big fans to it so you can sell your book. Your big fans buy your book from your Amazon affiliate link so you make a couple bucks more with each sale.
          4. People who pay speakers a few thousand bucks to speak at corporate gigs can find you.
          5. People who see you speak at their national corporate event become big fans.
          6. You remember what big fans do, right?
          7. You need a place to tell people to go when you’re on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.
          8. What do you mean, you’re a writer, not a social media geek?

          You don’t need a dedicated website that cost $5,000 though. Maybe if you want some funky graphics or an ecommerce site, you can spend that much. (I can even put you in touch with the people who can help you.)

          Instead you can just get by with a simple WordPress.com or Blogger.com website. Or if you want to get really complex, lease some server space, download WordPress.org to it, and you can have your own look and design, and even add your own plugins. (Our Pro Blog site is made with WordPress.org.)

          The great thing about WordPress and Blogger is that they all allow you to add pages. You don’t have to deal with the typical blog look of only having one page. Not only will you have your blog page, you can create additional pages for your bio, contact information, videos of you doing book readings, and useful links.

          While you don’t have to sell your soul and become a dedicated marketer, it won’t hurt to start thinking that way. (We’ll give you a good price for it.) If you still don’t want to, don’t worry. There are still thousands of writers — many of whom are worse than you — who are out promoting and marketing themselves online, being found by editors, and having important meetings about special projects. But you can console yourself with the thought that you didn’t resort to marketing (eww!) to promote your work.

          You’ll need to when you see their books in the bookstore.

          Photo credit: Djuliet (Flickr)

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            Filed Under: Blogging, Communication, Marketing, Tools, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,