The editorial board here has long supported what's known as a shield law for journalists. Now the Legislature has passed one, and suddenly we're conflicted about it.

Why? Because the whole nature of the journalism profession has changed. Mainly, it's a good change: Anyone who has access to a blog -- and that would be everyone, right? -- can be a journalist. They can post articles on sites that look reasonably professional and, with some low- to no-cost promotion, get the word out. THEIR words.

A shield law essentially protects the journalist from a court order that they turn over their sources and notes. Journalists often cannot get information critical to investigative or other controversial pieces without a promise of anonymity, so there are cases in which sources need protection or they simply won't come forward.

Many news organizations have rules in place to prevent abuse. Otherwise, we'd be running stories with anonymous accusations from sources that have nothing to lose and probably something to gain.

The problem is, independent bloggers have no gatekeepers to enforce similar standards. Should they have the same protections in court?

To make a long discussion short, I think there's more to be gained from the new Hawai'i law than to be lost. There is a risk of abuse, but there are established news organizations that don't abide by their own rules, either. And the media is self-policing, anyway, so who can tell which standards are being met?

We could come to no resolution. I'd be interested in what the readers think.

-- Vicki Viotti 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.