Who is a Journalist? Ask Apple

Thanks to the holiday weekend I'm a little behind in my reading. I tried to take in a bit more "real life" this weekend and a bit less of the online world.

In any case, a colleague sent me Charlie Cooper's piece from Friday about the most recent ruling in the Apple case. Basically, a blogger put out what Apple said were trade secrets, so Apple sued. At the heart was whether the blogger was a journalist and protected under California's shield.

The court held that yes, a blogger is, in fact, a journalist.

Last week Charlie Kravetz of NECN stopped by our offices and I had a chance to talk with him about the shield law he and others proposed for Massachusetts (I've written previously on the topic). They wrote the definition deliberately to include bloggers, but I still hold that it protects anyone who puts out information, such as PR people. Kravetz, of course, disagrees, saying that a court probably wouldn't hold that a PR firm could be considered a journalist.

But I guess that all depends on the judge and the lawyers involved.