By: Mathew Ingram | Gigaom
It would be nice if the debate over whether bloggers are journalists could be put to rest, more than a decade after it first began, and especially after bloggers like Glenn Greenwald have not only broken news stories but won Pulitzer Prizes for doing so. But it continues — especially when it comes to the protections that bloggers are entitled to and whether they should be the same as those given to professional journalists, as I have argued they should be.
A recent legal decision that helps support this idea was handed down in a Florida court case involving accusations of defamation. Under state law, anyone who wants to pursue a defamation case has to notify the media outlet in question five days before filing. But Christopher Comins argued he didn’t have to do so in the case of a blog post from university student Matthew VanVoorhis, because blogs aren’t a traditional form of media and therefore aren’t entitled to notice.
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