Journalist Shield Law: A Governmental Threat to Free Speech

Recently, Ted Cruz has talked about the government’s control of the internet as a threat to free speech. He referenced the Journalist “shield law” that claims to give journalists more protection by protecting them from being forced to reveal their sources; however, the threat to free speech arose when a Democratic Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein, “wanted to only extend the protection to ‘real reporters’ and not, a 17-year-old with his own website.” She said that she could not support the bill if “everyone who has a blog has a special privilege.” Now, I’m no legal scholar, but I’m pretty sure the First Amendment freedom of the press and speech is not considered a special privilege. Senator Feinstein went on to say that she wanted to define journalists as people that get paid a salary to report news; thus ensuring that no one else is covered under the proposed bill. The article poses the very relevant question that if journalist was so narrowly defined, then would the federal government “take measures to force bloggers, who have been key to exposing corruption in government over the past decade, to go to journalism school so that they can get their reports approved by the White House before publishing them?” The issue here is that 17-year-olds with blogs should have the same freedom of speech and press as a paid journalist.

By: Megan Grier

Here are the sources that I used:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/04/09/the-senates-media-shield-law-is-toothless-and-arbitrary

http://freedomoutpost.com/2015/10/cruz-government-control-of-internet-is-threat-to-free-speech/

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/09/feinstein-wants-define-journalist/