Media shield law moves forward

[struggle4progress]

Rem Rieder
USA TODAY
9:56 p.m. EDT September 12, 2013

... The Senate Judiciary Committee, on a 13-5 vote, approved the federal Free Flow of Information Act and sent it to the Senate floor ...

Under the committee's compromise, those covered would include someone who has had an employment relationship with a journalism organization for one year within the past 20 years, or three months within the past five years. Also covered are people with "a substantial track record of freelancing" in the past five years and student journalists ...

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, long a leader in the fight for shield legislation, hailed the committee's action. "It's not a perfect bill, but it goes a long way toward ensuring that reporters will be protected from subpoenas for their confidential information and sources," said Gregg Leslie, the committee's legal defense director.

It was also a welcome development at the Newspaper Association of America, another champion of the measure. "As recent events have clearly demonstrated, it is essential to protect both the freedom of the press and our national security through a balanced law that applies across all federal circuits," said NAA President and CEO Caroline Little. "This bill will preserve the integrity of the news gathering process while still ensuring effective law enforcement."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/12/senate-judiciary-committee-approves-media-shield-bill/2807045/

[seabeckind]

1. Nice start

Next define a "journalism organization". Establish standards for their reporting.
Step two, identify punitive and criminal penalties for violation of those standards. If damage is caused by invalid reports, the journalism organization is liable and must do whatever is necessary to mitigate the damage and provide monetary compensation.

If a "journalist" is shown to have violated those standards, they should lose their ID card that says they're a journalist and the magic ring that protects them from prosecution.

Afterall, fox is a "journalism organization". They lie and can pretend there's a source they have to proect.

Lastly -- bring back the Fairness Doctrine. If somebody calls you a liar, be prepared to prove that what you said was true.

And give them equal time to show you where they consider you to have lied.

As usual, this is one of those fake fixes.

[seabeckind]

2. General comment on reporting

A little offtopic but a really nagging pet peeve...

At what point did an essential part of news reporting become a personal comment by one of the people who was affected by an incident.

I watched all 3 major network snooze reports last nite about the flooding in CO. Not one of those reports showed me a map of the devastation. In fact, when I went online looking for the area I used google maps and entered the towns and cities affected and barely successful.

I saw nothing that showed how many people are affected, where and what resources are being made available to help them, what affect it will have on the functioning of the services, etc.

But I did hear what some people felt about having a river in their living room...even tho I had no clue where their living room was.

Same, same with Atlantic City. Not a mention of sprinkler systems, standards for rebuilding, requirements to prevent another tragedy, not only there but other possible places.

But I did get to hear how a man felt about having his business destroyed.

Maybe a general rule for reporting: If you can't interview everybody affected, interview nobody. Just report what happened at a higher level.

That is all...carry on.

Afterthought...do they teach this in school or is there a people mag that sets the standard?