Kill the Shield Laws

As a retired newspaperman and present-day blogger on current events, I have to say I hate the idea of shield laws for journalists.   

My first problem is, how do you define journalist?  A reporter for The New York Times obviously would qualify, but how about a retired newspaperman?  Or a blogger on current events?  Would Al Jareeza qualify?  How about high school or middle school newspapers?  If someone asks a government official a question and publishes the answer, might she qualify?  Where do you draw the line?

Trying to define journalist for legal purposes is too much like trying to define pornography.  We all know it when we see it, but our best lawyers can’t define it.

And even if we could define it, government has no business licensing journalists -- which is exactly what shield laws do. They give to journalists (or those the government defines as journalists) rights that no one else can have.  That strikes me as bordering on being unAmerican, if not blatantly unconstitutional. 

In order for Democracy to work the press must be free, but a press licensed by the government is not free.  It is beholden to the government under laws that the government, and only the government, can change, anytime and anyhow it wishes.  And that is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Journalists should retch at the idea of shield laws.

-Skip