Bill's Author Says Some Bloggers Would be Protected by Shield Law

By: Mark Fitzgerald Bloggers who actually gather news would be protected under the proposed federal shield law, the legislation's first author, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., told the Inland Press Association Monday.

Pence's view of who would qualify as a journalist under the Free Flow of Information Act differed from the assessment of the bill's co-sponsor in the Senate, Indiana Richard Lugar.

Exactly two weeks before speaking at the Inter American Press Association, Lugar said bloggers would "probably not" be considered journalists eligible for the act's protections.

Pence said bloggers would likely have to be considered on a "blog-by-blog" basis.

"Frankly, there are some that are out there gathering news," Spence said at Inland's 120th annual meeting. "There are many people though, who just link to your newspapers. It would be hard to argue to anyone that privilege applies to those people just because they have a Web site."

Pence asked the Inland publishers to rally their readers around the Free Flow of Information Act. "I believe we have an historic opportunity to close this hole in the First Amendment."

Pence said there was intense interest in the bill on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he noted has held two hearings on the issue at a time when "there have been not one but two Supreme Court vacancies."

Though Pence was the first author of the bill, its bi-partisan backers have decided to try to get it passed in the Senate first. (See related story, Shield Law Supporters Optimistic on Bill's Passage in 2006.)

Pence, who is chairman of the House Conservative Coalition, said he was moved to write the bill by "the specter of an American journalist spending 85 days in jail," a reference to embattled New York Times reporter Judith Miller, and by his admiration for the Brown publishing family in his hometown of Columbus, Ind. (Jeff Brown, president of the Inland Press Association as well as his family's Home News Enterprises, was the best man at Pence's wedding and introduced the representative before his speech.)

"As a conservative, I believe the only real check on government is a free press," Pence said. "And as someone who believes in limited government, I believe nothing is more conservative than promoting and protecting the principle of a free press."

Pence said he frankly believes much of the news media is liberal, and he joked that he reads The New York Times every Sunday morning and then goes to church to "so I know what both sides are up to."

"This isn't about protecting reporters," he said of the proposed shield law. "This is about protecting the peoples? right to know."