By Nate Anderson
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Last updated October 31, 2007 11:32 AM
(Excerpts)
When Philip Smith took to his blog to describe his (negative) experience
of working with an eBay listing company, he did not expect that he
would end up representing himself in a federal defamation and trademark
dilution lawsuit or that he would have difficulty selling his condo
after a lawyer for the plaintiffs clouded his title to the property.
Now, after winning the case in spectacular fashion, Smith has emerged as
an unlikely hero for bloggers everywhere who hope to be regarded as
journalists.
No US court has yet weighed in with authority on the debate about
whether bloggers count as journalists, but the recent federal decision
from South Carolina does indicate that at least some bloggers
are journalists. It's not about the title, it's about the content, said
Judge Henry Hurlong, Jr.; a journalist turns out to be anyone who does
journalism, and bloggers who do so have the same rights and privileges
under federal law as the "real" journalists.
The case began when Smith blogged
about his experience working with an eBay listing company called
BidZirk. He had a less than satisfactory experience working with the
company, and he used his article as a chance to talk about eBay listing
services in general, then closed with a checklist that potential users
of such services should consider.
On September 17, 2007, Smith moved for summary judgment in the case and
argued that the plaintiffs had no real claim against him. The BidZirk
logo was protected by his status as a journalist, he argued, while the
"yes man" comment was not a statement of fact. As for the picture, he
had only linked to a community site.
The judge agreed, and last week issued summary judgment for Smith. The
most important section of the ruling is the one dealing with Smith's
status as a journalist. The court admitted that it was impossible to
determine in advance whether a blogger was a journalist and so used a
"functional analysis" that "examines the content of the material, not
the format, to determine whether it is journalism."
The judge noted that Smith wrote the article in order to convey
information, that he had done researchin preparing it, that he
addressed both positive and negative aspects of his experience, and that
he provided a checklist for others to use."The fact that Smith reports
negatively about his experience with BidZirk does not dictate that the
article's function or intent was not news reporting or news commentary,"
wrote the judge. Furthermore, he noted explicitly that "some bloggers
are without question journalists."MUCH MORE
I believe this is important to the Blogging community, and although I will admit that everyone but me might have already known the answer, I'm submitting this brief entry so those that have similar questions will easily find an answer.
