FEC Rules Blogs/Bloggers Count as Media

Published on September 5, 2007 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

There's been a lot of commotion lately about what sort of legal classification bloggers fall under. Are they media? Do they have the same protections as journalists? Do they have to comply with campaign finance laws when it comes to political blogs? In the case of the latter, the Federal Election Commission yesterday declared that blogs and bloggers are classified as media for the purposes of US Electoral Law.

The ruling came in two parts. First in a case against political blogging site The Daily Kos, alleging that since the site charged a fee for advertising, but also gave "free advertising" to candidates it supported through favorable stories, the site needed to comply with election laws. The second was against an individual who purchased webspace and hosted a site dedicated to the defeat of a local representative in the November 2006 election.

This is perhaps the first time bloggers have been given official, legal classification and recognition. The next step is the blogger shield law that is currently being drafted. The shield law will provide bloggers the same protections as traditional journalists when it comes to protecting sources.

Comments

JeremyG

on Sep 05, 2007

NICE! I have a blog. Now I can get press passes for all my favorite concerts!

Philly0381

on Sep 05, 2007

I'm just a little confused here. Doesn't the FCC control media? How does the FEC get involved? At any rate doesn't the fact now that someone declared them part of the Media mean they can also be sued for what they post?

Zoomba

on Sep 05, 2007

The FEC regulates everything related to elections. The turmoil recently was over whether or not blogs should be subject to FEC regulations and laws. The FEC determined that blogs and bloggers fall under the media category, which is exempt under most election laws.

Philly0381

on Sep 05, 2007

Okay then, well, never mind.

sdaubs

on Sep 06, 2007

To update the story, the FEC ruled last year that blogs like Daily Kos and Red State (they were mentioned specifically then) were protected by the media shield. This was considered to be a nuisance lawsuit by the blogs in general since they had to fight for nearly a year for the media shield in the first place.

Edited: I said last week when I meant last year.

Jafo

on Sep 06, 2007

Shouldn't have been all that hard to determine that a blog was 'media'.

It/they are the public dissemination of information, no different to a radio or TV.

The only issue was they would need to be included into any 'act', though by definition the distribution is by Telecommunications [modems, et al] so already would have such 'status', just not formally defined...

People can, and have been sued across international borders for what was publicly displayed/distributed on the net....as Libel laws will/do apply...

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