Bloggers are not journalists

Boing Boing is filing an amicus brief in the appeal against Apple. Last week Apple won a ruling against Apple Insider and PowerPage forcing the websites to reveal their sources. This is not a journalism issue. It's a free speech issue. Boing Boing's attorney is looking for links where bloggers broke a news story for the brief.

This muddies the issue. Holding bloggers out to be journalist won't do much to protect anyone. A three-judge panel recently upheld a ruling that found two reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, in contempt of court for not revealing their sources.