Editorial: Protecting Grassroots Journalism

By K. Paul Mallasch

In late 2007, President George W. Bush signed the "Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2007," making it law. As a grassroots journalism publisher, I find news like this heartening.

In our own state, Congressman Mike Pence's work with a federal media shield law would include those who derive a substantial amount of their income from acts of journalism.

It's important for those of us interested in taking back the media to let our elected officials know when they do something that makes it easier to accomplish our task - poking and prodding big media until they wake up and begin listening to the citizens they serve.

A free and independent media is important to the American way of life. These are small steps, but they're in the right direction. 

From Mashable:

Additionally, the representatives of new media has been privy to an expansion of definition, according to the following:

[T]he term ‘a representative of the news media’ means any person or entity that gathers information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses its editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience. In this clause, the term ‘news’ means information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public.

Examples of news-media entities are television or radio stations broadcasting to the public at large and publishers of periodicals (but only if such entities qualify as disseminators of ‘news’) who make their products available for purchase by or subscription by or free distribution to the general public.

These examples are not all-inclusive. Moreover, as methods of news delivery evolve (for example, the adoption of the electronic dissemination of newspapers through telecommunications services), such alternative media shall be considered to be news-media entities.

Are you yawning yet? What all this mumbo jumbo means is that citizen journalists and journalists are now covered under the amended Act. That deserves one big, fat hooray, for the most part. While the new definition of new media representative isn’t all inclusive, it’s a step in the right direction. Thanks, Mr. Bush, for giving the next president a head start on the right way to handle the Internet as a distribution tool. Bloggers need protection, too.

Items like this will help as we try to change Indiana Code for the benefit of the state.