A San Jose, California judge steered away from ruling whether blogger journalists have shield law status in protecting sources. James Kleinberg narrowed his opinion to the trade secret infringement issue inherent in publishing known proprietary information. Read the AP story
Online sources ordered revealed
JUDGE SIDESTEPS ONE ISSUE: ARE BLOGGERS JOURNALISTS?
By Dawn C. Chmielewski
Mercury News (subscription)
A San Jose judge ruled Friday that two Web sites have no right to protect the identity of people who gave them trade secrets about an upcoming Apple Computer product.
Judge Kleinberg observed that journalists don’t have protection from breaking the law. I would add, unless you’re powerful or of service to those who are. What’s happen to the one journalist, Robert Novak, who knows the source of the identification of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent? A time line on the identity leak is here and the Daily Kos has a recent posting. Slate explores the question of blogger journalism.
