I've been watching the debate developing this week around two closely related developments - mutterings about regulating blogs through Federal Election Commission and the fallout of the Apple case.
In a case with implications for the freedom to blog, a San Jose judge tentatively ruled Thursday that Apple Computer can force three online publishers to surrender the names of confidential sources who disclosed information about the company's upcoming products. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg refused to extend to the Web sites a protection that shields journalists from revealing the names of unidentified sources or turning over unpublished material. ...The case raises issues about whether those who write for online publications are entitled to the same constitutional protections as their counterparts in more traditional print and broadcast news organizations.
Dan Gilmor;
I apparently stopped being a journalist the day I left my newspaper job after a quarter-century of writing for newspapers.
Drudge this evening:
FLASH: White House press corps admits its first 'blogger'...Developing...
It's bit early to know what this means, or if it's even accurate. But if it is, could it be that the White House has decided to weigh in on the debate on behalf of the "citizen" press?
Stay tuned.
update - more info in the comments about Garrett M. Graff. (I was kind of hoping it would be Bill Ardolino....)
Considering the major news events coming out of the blog world - eason, rather - I can't imagine Bush has a negative feeling toward blogs.
I'm kind of torn on this one. I totally understand the bloggers concern about protecting there sources, but I understand, and appreciate apples position as well.
Apple has always kept very tight lipped on future releases as set out by there NDA, which does give them the right to sue for damages.
Problem you got is how do you apply the NDA, when someone releases the info to a blogger or the MSM. There only alternative is to sue by anymeans all involved.
This isn't new from a tech giant, as M$ has been doing it for years, but it is new to sue a thinksecret etc., which is a blogger style site.
Judge has a tough one here in determining wether blogging falls under the classification of media or press.
Maybe Apple shuld have taken their security more seriously if they're that worried about it. I can't see sueing just for releasing pictures taken or even details about what's in the machine. That's all in the information/news category.
A better idea would be say if I took a picture of GM's new amazingly stylish never-thought-of design and released the pic. Sueing me for just releasing the picture is kind of indefinite at best, silly at worst. A better approach would be for GM to sue me for "damages done" - that Ford was retooling and using the design and as a result, it was going to cost GM $50 million in sales - so I get sued for $50 million (no, not that I have it). An additional suit would be whatever financial cost as a result of lost media hype over the new design (which could be even more).
Sort of like if I worked for the govt and I was designing a new software-only nuclear weapon (hey, it's all electrons). Send one email to france and the country leaves the solar system. No point in suing me for the whole free press side of things when they could send me to prison for a million years for releasing state secrets.
If the idea of an "excessive freeedom of the press" gets into the picture than they're either pursuing the wrong thing or they don't have a case.
The "Blogger" joining the WH Press is DC Fish Bowl which describes itself as a "gossip blog." The owner of the blog appears to be Garrett Graff....
Garrett M. Graff, VP of Online Communications, formerly served as Howard Dean's deputy national press secretary, overseeing the campaign's press releases and writing op-eds and statements, as well as daily talking points briefings for senior staff and supporters. In addition to being a freelance writer, Garrett has worked at ABCNews's Political Unit and The Atlantic Monthly and served as executive editor of the Harvard Crimson. In 1997 he built and launched the first Web site for Dean as governor of Vermont.
Not sure what the outcome will be, but apple has won the first round.
Apple won a preliminary ruling allowing it to subpoena information from three Mac sites which helped leak information surrounding a recently rumored audio product ("Asteroid").
http://www.macrumors.com/