Who Is A Journalist?

by Paul McGoldrick

The news media is very difficult to identify these days. We all probably have one or two favorite web sites that still appear as a conventional print publication alongside the electronic version. The latter usually has the advantage of spontaneity, but also, increasingly, carries with it a subscription model that few of us are willing to fork out money for. Those ‘private’ sites are beaten by the likes of Google, of course, and most of them lack sophistication in hiding their content from most of us.

But what of the millions of blogs that are around? Can they justify themselves as being described as news sites? Certainly the likes of the Huffington Post, which grew on the backs of free blog contributions by the public, has been able to cash in on its content with its recent sale to AOL for $315 million. Yet, when you look at the Huffington site, they break all the journalistic rules of things like layout: having a ‘front page’ that is about ten scroll lengths offers the reader an impossible task in handling the content. Ms. Huffington has also, rather unsurprisingly, turned out to be a very non-corporate executive, with many unkind words having been written about her style of management. AOL has made not a penny from the purchase, it has been reported, and the operation is said to be up for resale this time as a loss leader at only $27 million. It is rather a sad outlook on its future that the only viable offer that has been publicized to date is one from The Blaze which is a ‘conservative’ web site created by Glenn Beck in 2010 after his departure from Fox News. (It also has a front page problem…) Somehow one doesn’t think that such a deal would involve Ms. Huffington’s services!

But what defines journalism on such sites? Would you give contributors a press badge for a function that you were running and wanted publicity for? If not, why not?

The definition of journalist becomes more and more obscure as time goes on. I take the stance that someone who reports regularly on a subject – any subject, in my opinion – should be considered a journalist. I certainly regard myself as a technology journalist, for example, and have never had any problem in receiving press accreditation from events as varied as NAB to IEEE conventions. We have no print presence (and have absolutely no desire for one), but we are still press.

It therefore rankles (and that is the politest word I can come up with as I am actually seething inside) that an Oregon judge should decide that a person making regular web reports on a topic is not a journalist for the purposes of legal protection. The activities of the principal in the case, Crystal Cox, (a real estate agent and blogger from Montana) are dubious in the extreme, leveling accusations against an attorney without any hard evidence, apparently, to support them. She was found by a federal jury to have defamed the attorney and he was awarded $2.5 million. Which begs the question - should she have been afforded constitutional rights as a journalist? The judge presiding over the case, US District Judge Marco Hernandez, ruled that she did not qualify for such rights. He even rejected the argument that she is a member of the media, not a journalist.

Oops!

The judge decided that Cox had no education as a journalist, no credentials of affiliation with a ‘recognized news entity,’ and no proof of adherence to journalistic standards. Wow.

(Where, one wonders, does that leave operations like News International - the UK arm of Murdoch's News Corporation - in the journalism stakes?)

Hernandez also ruled that Cox could not retract statements she had made under Oregon’s retraction statutes because the legislature “has not expanded the list of publications or broadcasts to include Internet blogs.” I guess that leaves The Oregonian and OregonLive (its Internet presence) out there in the wilderness as well – sorry, Mr. Manning.

As to whether Ms. Cox is a member of the press, the judge should perhaps have been directed to a Supreme Court ruling of 1938 (303 US 444 Lovell V. City of Griffin) on the case of one Alma Lovell, who was fined $50 (or 50 days in jail) for refusing to obtain a city license to distribute religious material to the population. The key in that ruling was this statement: “The press, in its historic connotation, comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.” (See paragraph four.)

Judge Hernandez’ ruling will not survive appeal, nor should it. And my opinion is also on our blog.