Congress Begins to Explore Bloggers Rights

A panel in the US congress has begun to explore the issue of Bloggers rights providing protections that traditional journalists get. Before you get excited this is just a panel that approved the issue, not the full house and President Bush has voiced strong opposition to the shield, but at least the conversation started.

In response to concerns raised by the Bush administration and other politicians, the revised bill attempts to exclude the “casual blogger” from reaping those benefits by stipulating the protections apply only to those who derive “financial gain or livelihood” from the journalistic activity, Boucher said Wednesday. That broad rule could, however, include part-time writers who receive even a trickle of revenue from Google Ads or Blogads.com.

I’m still shocked how slow this country and corporations have taken to even mention the word blogger and journalist in the same sentence and how people don’t recognize that some blogs provide better well researched information then mainstream media. Thankfully a conversation is started and hopefully in a few years and hopefully in a few years the law will be on our side.

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