The New York Times reported yesterday that there has been some progess this week on discussion over a federal shield law that would protect journalists from having to reveal their sources. The big movement, as noted in the story, is that the protection would be expanded to cover “citizen journalists” who report the news via publications such as blogs.

Shield laws do a lot of good but can at the same time be a scary thing to lovers of free speech (for background, see Wikipedia on shield laws). To this point, we have them only on a state-by-state basis, and they allow reporters freedom to cite sources off-the-record in order to have the information needed to report important news to our readers. Watergate, obviously, is the most notable example of a journalist using this technique to break important news and some states (including my home state of California) have recognized that this is an important way to get information out that serves the public good.

Even though he was an independent blogger, Josh Wolf served more time in jail than any journalist in U.S. history for protecting his right not to reveal a source.

Although some states have shield laws, the push for a federal shield law has been going on for years. One reason is that the state laws only cover journalists in cases that are under state jurisdiction. The minute the feds get involved, as Josh Wolf learned back in 2006, those protections don’t exist. Just a couple years ago the court reaffirmed Branzburg v. Hayes, which said the First Amendment doesn’t give journalists the right to protect their sources. As a result of this, Wolf (a blogger journalist) went to jail to protect a source and ended up serving more time for this offense than any journalist in U.S. history.

Scholars and media professionals alike have wrung their hands over shield laws for years. They do provide journalists with a tool to break important news in their communities, but in some ways this has made anonymous sourcing so easy that it at times feels like a crutch for lazy reporters. Also, for those of us who argue for transparency of method, anonymous sourcing is anathema to the process. At best, it should be used sparingly. Read more

I’ve blogged a lot over the past few years, either here or via the Cyberbrains, about different pieces of the puzzle that the news industry can use to pull out of the current economic challenge it faces. My recent posts about Google and the AP got me thinking about maybe pulling some of those ideas together, and then one of my bright students who follows me on Twitter (@) gave me a bit of a nudge on this.

Obviously it’s really easy to point out misguided ideas, but putting yourself out there and talking about what you think will work is a little bit harder. I’ve been here at MU for almost five full years and had access to knowledge, resources, great minds, and some really cool future-looking projects. A lot of different ideas are swirling in my head as a result as I’m winding down my time here.

In reference to AP and newspapers/online sites in general, I’ve cobbled toether some ideas that I’ve read about or witnessed in action firsthand that offer a glimpse of a better future. Three caveats I offer: Read more

There’s been some excellent traffic and discussion on my last post regarding Singleton/AP and Google News. Much of that has been generated through social media (Twitter and links on other blogs), reinforcing a lesson I try to emphasize with my students: Think of social networks, not web sites, as your platform.

Anyhow, read the post and add to the discussion if you like.

I want to pull out one response I have to the comments though because it is pretty salient to the discussion. What happens if all these newspapers go away or put up walls around their content? Will people pay for it? Will the newspapers collapse and take democracy with it? Read more

ESPN recently launched a site devoted to sports fans’ travels to sporting events, and it’s pretty slick. In addition to offering travel guides for fans looking to attend faraway events such as spring training, ESPN Sports Travel also gives fans a chance to upload content and memories from their trip (such as photos) under the Passport menu.

It also gives fans back a little bit of power to rate many different aspects of the sports fan experience.

Better, the site is cross-branded using a sponsorship from Orbitz, giving the site a sponsorship that both makes sense and connects to the actual content. In addition to giving sponsorship for the site, Orbitz travel deals are prominent on the page and give fans a resource looking for travel deals. Read more