Your Rights as an Online Journalist: What Will 2007 Bring?

by Kim Pearson, Educator - The College of New Jersey, http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/Pearson070105/

In her January 8, 2007 article on the Online Journalism Review website, educator and blogger Kim Pearson interviewed experts in the fields of constitutional law, copyright, and ethics for a forecast of what online journalists can expect to deal with in 2007.Some of the issues Pearson notes include:

• The Bush administrations's contempt for the press leading to more instances of the use of subpoenas to compel anonymous sources to give up their anonymity, and possibly more journalists being sent to jail for failing to give up anonymous sources.
• More talk of a federal shield law to protect journalists and press freedom.
• More focus on internet practices that expose journalists and bloggers to charges of copyright infringement. 
• Democratic support for legislation that might make it easier for newspapers to survive, i.e. allowing cross-ownership in circumstances where a newspaper would otherwise fail.
• Sustained attention on the movement to train and certify bloggers to ensure that they understand and adhere to high legal and ethical standards. 
• And a movement towards liability insurance for bloggers in the event they're sued for claims they make in their writing.