Blogging on Broken Glass: Why the Proposed Free Flow of Information Act Needs a Specific Test for Determining When Media Shield Laws Apply to Bloggers
![handle is hein.journals/mipr10 and id is 747 raw text is: Note
Blogging on Broken Glass: Why the Proposed Free Flow of
Information Act Needs a Specific Test for Determining When
Media Shield Laws Apply to Bloggers
Amy Bauer*
INTRODUCTION
In 2007, Washington became the thirty-third state to enact a
statute protecting newspeople from compelled discovery of their
sources.1 While passing such a shield law2 was certainly not
novel, Washington's statute is unique in that it is the first statute
specifically applying the journalist's nondisclosure privilege to
information disseminated on the Internet.3 Other state shield laws
have been or could be interpreted as encompassing a privilege for
Internet newsgatherers,4 but most state shield laws explicitly limit
© 2009 Amy Bauer.
* Amy Bauer is a J.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota. She would
like to thank her family and friends, the MJLST volume 10 staff and editors,
and her favorite blogger, Jim Conway.
1. See WASH. REV. CODE ANN. § 5.68.010 (West Supp. 2009).
2. Laws shielding journalists from mandatory discovery of their
sources are collectively known as shield laws. See Citizen Media Law
Project, State Shield Laws, http://www.citmedialaw.org/state-shield-laws/
(last visited Feb. 24, 2008). States may also refer to a shield law as a
journalist's privilege, reporter's privilege, newsperson's privilege, or
'news media privilege. See, e.g., FLA. STAT. ANN. § 90.5015 (West 1999)
(Ujournalist's privilege); 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. ANN. 5/8-901 (West 2003)
(reporter's privilege); MD. CODE ANN., CTS. & JUD. PROC. § 9-112 (West
2006) (news media privilege); N.J. STAT. ANN. § 2A:84A-21 (West 1994)
([n]ewsperson's privilege). This Note will refer to any such statute as a
shield law.
3. WASH. REV. CODE ANN. § 5.68.010 (The term 'news media'
means.., 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.... .) (emphasis added).
4. See, e.g., O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal. App. 4th 1423, 1468
747](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/mipr10&div=26&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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