On the heels of the latest threat to sue a blogger by a sad woman in Connecticut for her personal theory of how the law should work and her paranoid delusions of the evil internet, it’s worth visiting the argument happening in New Jersey over whether blogger Tina Renna, a harsh critic of local government, is a journalist and therefore protected under the shield law.
Union County, N.J., prosecutors demanded Tina Renna give them “the names of 16 government officials who she accused online of misusing county generators after Hurricane Sandy,” Lilly Chapa reports. Renna claimed privilege, and Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy has ordered a hearing “to further discuss whether Renna is a journalist as defined under the state shield law,” Chapa writes.The Star-Ledger came out in an editorial in support of Renna:
The Poynter post then offers, ironically, the Crystal Cox case in juxtaposition. I know nothing about Tina Renna and hold no view as to whether she’s deserving of journalistic protections, though I’m happy to defer to the Star-Ledger’s editors on this.That’s the challenge: If we let any blogger be covered by the shield law, so many people will claim the privilege that the exception could swallow up the rule. A line must be drawn, but the courts haven’t identified one. So it depends on the facts of each caseIn this case, they conclude, “Yes, she can be a little wild, she’s not the same as a professional reporter and she drives local officials crazy. But part of democracy is putting up with Tina Renna.”
What is painfully clear to me, as a blawger, is that there is no shortage of problems and issues that arise from the medium which elude the ordinary working of the law. Threats abound. Crazies are allowed to purchase keyboards and a URL if they can afford the price. Some use them to create scandalously absurd things they call blogs, while others use them to shamelessly promote themselves.
The internet, just a few short years ago, was self-regulating. Post something stupid or crazy and someone would pound you into the ground, crush you, destroy you. It was harsh, but for the most part worked. The knee-jerk reaction to criticism wasn’t to scream threats of a lawsuit. This was the wild west, and we didn’t need no stinkin’ lawsuits. We fixed our own problems.
Those days are gone. No, they weren’t a panacea, and there were days when it was disturbing. But run to court? That’s pretty disturbing too. And costly, And time consuming. And unreliable. And that’s just if the person wasn’t batshit crazy. You really don’t appreciate how many utterly crazy people there are until you try to maintain a blog. Talk about scary.
The question of whether a blogger is a journalist is a persistent problem. The simple answer is that some are and some aren’t. There are numerous definitional problems involved, ranging from what is a blog to what distinguishes a journalist in the digital age. In a sense, it’s a return to the old days, before journalistic media went mainstream, and became a college course, big business and credentialed. Anyone who could put out a pamphlet was a journalist once, even though they didn’t get a paycheck from the AP. Have we returned to those days, just with a different medium?
There is something to be said for journalists who are trained in the practices and obligations of their occupation. They adhere to an approach to their job, such as getting both sides of a story before publishing, even though it’s more tradition than obligation. By getting a byline in accepted rag, legitimacy is beyond question.
There are no established rules for legitimacy of bloggers. I doubt many of us would really want there to be, as we’re hardly clear that we would be able to pass the test. That would certainly be embarrassing. And if we tried to create some set of rules that would distinguish legit bloggers from, well, everyone else, what would they be? I’ve given a lot of thought to the definition, and frankly find fault with almost everything I’ve come up with. That leaves me with the old Potter Stewart cop-out, “I know it when I see it.” That’s hardly good enough.
But then, it gets tedious having to fend off every nutjob threat that comes down the pike. Sometimes I write about the threats received, and other times not. But you have no idea how often someone threatens a lawsuit. As a lawyer, I’m in a better situation both to assess the merit of a claim, and if needed, to deal with it, than many other bloggers. Others are not so fortunate, leading to the misguided sense that it’s the fault of lawyers that non-lawyers are constantly threatening to sue.
Adding to the problem is the nature of the medium itself, spread around the country, spread around the world. Then there are the pseudonymous threats. Then there are the scrapers. Then there are the butthurt public officials, cops and prosecutors who add their threats to the mix. It never ends.
If we can’t return to the days of the Wild West on the internet, and I believe we can’t, then we need a means by which to deal with the constant stream of craziness directed at bloggers. We need a way to distinguish the real from the insane, the meritorious from the shameless from the worthless. We need a way to deal with disputes that won’t be so expensive, time-consuming and burdensome as to make blogging too much of a hassle to be worth it. Remember, there’s no money or fame in blogging, despite what anybody says.
But I have no clue how this should be accomplished, or even how to begin to define good and bad, rational from crazy. And yet the threats keep coming. How long before its more trouble than its worth?
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The reference is this title is a bit more obscure than usual. George Harrison?
You got it.
Google (on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog).
That’s everything you need to know.
While I’ve used that New Yorker cartoon and phrase many times here, it has absolutely nothing to do with this post. Please don’t drink and type.
About all that we do know at this point is that eventually someone will be establishing some sort of rules. And for those rules to be credible, there will be some sort of enforcement other than the ‘hue and cry’ that worked well in the early ‘Wild West’ days of the Internet.
If Al Gore invented the Internet, couldn’t he have invented some rules to go along with it?
I highly recommend the legal community pay very close attention to the details of the Tina Renna case. On the surface, her blog page, appears noble, but she altered it after her subpeona. In court the prosecution noted this on record. Listen to the prosecution’s side and don’t so quickly credit this watchdog with good intentions. This is a case wherein a local republican party has been proven to provide donations to this group to daily make repeated accussations of criminality of an all democratic party strong hold employees in Union County. They tell people flat out who to vote for, etc. They are more akin to a lobbyist group than a citizens watchdog group when you read through 5 years of blogs. UCWA has caused several local and state level investigations, as well as FBI investigations from their accussations over the five years without one leading to a conviction. In other words, they repeatedly accuse people of wrongdoing but can’t back up their accussations once looked into. This case is a classic example of yet another accussation wherein Ms. Renna states she has the names of 16 people who illegaly used generators during Superstorm Sandy. In her blog she offered to hand over the names of the sources and the generatortakers to the State AG. Once she was put to the test and asked for the names, via two request letters and now a subpeona, she turns 180 on the local prosecuter and waives reporter privilege. Her credibility is now questioned, as well as her writings over the years. If anything, this proves that a blogger should not be considered a journalist. If anything, they should be held to a higher standard of accountability to what they spew over the internet. A blogger hasn’t any ethics, and their motives are questionable. Legit reporters don’t go around repeatedly accusing people of criminal activity as this blogger does. Furthermore, this blogger claims legitimacy because she investigates. On the surface, that makes her appear, noble, however she fails to fully complete investigations prior to asserting her allegations on her blog. She actually is an entertainment blog wherein she makes the reader a part of her investigations as she goes through the process and shares many theory’s and assumptions based upon her inability to obtain necessary material to come to any conclusions. Her motto is, if she can’t complete her investigation, their must be cover-up and therefore that person is guilty of a crime. She hasn’t been held accountable because her following is small and it frankly just isn’t worth the attorney’s fees to take her to court. She has liabled many people, and has caused many to pay large amounts for legal defenses into crimal allegations. Too bad, she hasn’t turned up one conviction since she started in 2005
I fear you’ve completely missed the point of this post. It’s not about Tina Renna, just as Tina Renna isn’t the poster boy for all bloggers. Maybe she’s a tool. Maybe she’s nuts. Maybe she’s right.
But to say that “a blogger hasn’t any ethics” renders your screed insipid. “Legit” reporters screw up stories all the time. Bloggers sometimes provide a much better source of information and analysis. So while you obviously have a beef with Tina Renna, you extrapolate from your hate of Renna assumptions about bloggers and journalists that are baseless. She may not be credible, but neither are you.
No, I did not miss any point in this post. My point stated is that this case is a poor example to rely upon for setting presidence for the rest of the blogging community, therefore this is not beneficial to well intentioned bloggers who may very well have all the wonderful characteristics you express. Additionally, I appreciate your passion to defend bloggers, you absolutely made good points. However, I believe we haven’t any guarantee over the bloggers validity of their sources if they can make allegations unchecked. A traditional newsmedia outlet has a level of accountability, a code of ethics,and risk that a blogger does not have. Therefore, I believe there are many differences. I don’t want anyone to be able to say “a source told me” behind a computer in their home and we are left to believe them because they claim to be a reporter without any connection to a news organization or educational degree. To say I have a beef with Tina, is silly, I was only wishing to share what I have learned from what the prosecution has stated. I actually thought what I offered was interesting. I encourage everyone to confirm and learn for themselves.
Yes, you’re the most interesting and knowledgeable anonymous narcissist to comment here today. I’m sure everyone will be deeply moved by your very important contribution, not to mention your very high regard for your opinion, and will change all views that are contrary to yours.
Narcissists always do. The Renna case doesn’t set “presidence” (we lawyers call it “precedence”), but merely raises the issue. This has nothing to do with passion, which may resonate with you but means nothing to me. It’s merely about journalistic hubris and ignorance, as opposed to those bloggers with subject matter expertise. I know. You didn’t understand. You’re forgiven. Now back to the home with you. They miss you there.